Class I. DEER. 55 



border on Cormvall and Devonshire, and in 

 Ireland on the mountains of Kerry, where they 

 add greatly to the magnificence of the romantic 

 scenery of the lake of Killarny. 



The stacks of Ireland during; its uncultivated 

 state, and while it remained an almost bound- 

 less tract of forest, had an exact agreement in 

 habit with those ^vhich range at present through 

 the wilds of America. They were less in body, . 

 but very fat ; and their horns of a size far su- 

 perior to those of Europe, but in form agreed in . 

 all points. Old Giraldiis speaks with much 

 precision of those of Ireland, Cervos prce nimia 

 pingiiedine minus fugere pravalentes, quanta 

 minores sunt corporis quantitate, tanto pnecel- 

 lentius efferuntur, capitis et cornuum digni- 

 tate* 



[The rutting time of the old stags, begins the 

 hittQY end oi August ov hegmnmgoi September, 

 and ends about the 20th of that month : that 

 of the next age, begins about the 10th of ^e^/^e77z- . -' 



ber, and ends the beginning of October: the 

 younger stags are in rut from about the ,20th of 

 September till the loth of October, after whom 



* Topogr. Hilernue. c. 19. Lawson in his history of CarO' 

 Una p. 123, mentions the fatness of the American stags, and 

 their inferiority of size to the European. I have often seen their 

 horns, which vastly exceed those of our country in size, and 

 number of antlers. 



