THE RED DEER. 553 



dant, however, in Poland and Hungary, Styria, Carinthia, and the Tyrol. 

 It prefers mountainous to level districts, and loves to frequent long 

 stretches of forest. With regard to it in Great Britain, Wood writes: 

 " In the olden days of chivalry and Robin Hood, the Red Deer were 

 plentiful in every forest ; and especially in that sylvan chase which was 

 made by the exercise of royal tyranny at the expense of such sorrow and 

 suffering. Even in the New Forest itself the Red Deer is seldom seen, 

 and those few survivors that still serve as relics of a bygone age, are 

 scarcely to be reckoned as living in a wild state, and approach nearly to 

 the semi-domesticated condition of the Fallow Deer. Many of these 

 splendid animals are preserved in parks or paddocks, but they no more 

 roam the wide forests in unquestioned freedom. In Scotland, however, 

 the Red Deer are still to be found, as can be testified by many a keen 

 hunter of the present day, who has had his strength, craft, and coolness 

 thoroughly tested before he could lay low in the dust the magnificent 

 animal, whose head with its forest of horns now graces his residence." 



The Red Deer forms troops of various sizes, divided according to sex 

 or age. The females and calves usually keep together ; the older stags 

 form smaller bands, but the master-stags live alone till the breeding 

 season comes on. At all times the herd, when traveling, follows a doe; 

 the buck appears last of all. If we see in a herd several stout bucks, we 

 can with certainty look for a still stouter one some five hundred paces 

 behind. In winter the Red Deer comes down from the mountains, and 

 when its horns are soft, it avoids the forests. The color varies slightly 

 according to the time of year. In summer its coat is a warm reddish- 

 brown, but in winter the ruddy hue becomes gray. The young, which 

 are born about April, have their fur mottled with white upon the back 

 and sides, the white marking gradually fading as they increase in size. 

 The young deer, for a short time after its birth, is very helpless, and 

 crouches close to the ground till it looks like a block of stone when it 

 has been warned by its mother that danger is nigh. 



All the movements of the stag are full of grace and dignity, and its 

 speed, when it is in full gallop, is incredibly swift. Immense leaps are 

 executed with sportive lightness, all obstacles surmounted, and lakes or 

 streams crossed by swimming. Its senses of hearing, smell, and sight 

 are highly developed ; it can scent a man perhaps about six hundred 

 yards off, and hears the slightest rustle made by its pursuer. Like many 

 animals it seems to have a love for some kinds of music ; the notes of a 

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