ANTLERS 79 



that hinds have been seen to eat the shed horns. 

 One, he says, will consume a part, and when she 

 drops it, it will be taken up and gnawed by the 

 others. He adds that "the late Duke of Athol 

 once found a dead hind which had been choked by 

 a part of the horn that remained sticking in her 

 throat." The author of that entertaining and now 

 scarce book, The Chase of the Wild Red Deer, 

 the late Mr C. P. Collyns, was assured by keepers 

 and hillmen of great experience and undoubted 

 veracity in Scotland, that it is a common occurrence 

 for hinds to eat the cast horns, though he was 

 never able to confirm it from his own experience in 

 Devonshire and Somersetshire. In The Field of 

 January 23, 1858, "A Highlander" wrote, saying: 

 " As to what becomes of the horns annually shed by 

 deer, I can answer, from actual observation, that 

 very many of them are eaten, or at least munched 

 up by other deer. A deer, either stag or hind, I 

 have seldom seen passing a fallen horn without 

 gnawing it ; and very rarely indeed have I seen a 

 shed horn that was not partially gnawed. It is 

 said that the stags conceal their horns, when shed 

 in soft places. I have never seen them do so ; but 

 the finest specimens of shed horns I have ever 

 found were during the summer's drought, where 

 the waters of some bog had nearly disappeared. I 

 never found an entire horn except in water or 

 moss." Lord Lovat, who has referred to the 

 subject in his chapter on " Deer-stalking " con- 

 tributed to the volume on Moor and Marsh 

 Shooting in the " Badminton Library," says : 



