8o RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



" Unless picked up very soon, these shed horns are 

 rarely found whole. Both hinds and stags are 

 very fond of eating them, as they are of any bones 

 they may find." 



At a meeting of the Zoological Society in 

 December 1883, Sir Joseph Fayrer exhibited some 

 deer horns which he had picked up at Dunrobin, 

 and which had in great part been eaten away, as he 

 thought probable, by deer,^although (as he remarked) 

 "it was difficult to conceive how a deer, with its 

 toothless upper jaw" (he meant in front only) 

 " could eat a hard bone ; for such is a shed horn." 

 His surmises, however, were doubtless correct, and 

 were confirmed by the subsequent receipt of several 

 more horns that had been partially gnawed by deer 

 in the same forest, and were sent up by Mr James 

 Inglis, the head keeper at Dunrobin. In a letter 

 which accompanied these specimens, Mr Inglis 

 wrote : — 



" I asked the stalkers to keep a look-out, and see 

 if they could find any deer eating horns, and am 

 glad to say that they have been able to put the 

 matter beyond all doubt. Donald M'Rae saw with 

 his glass a stag in Dunrobin Glen eating a horn. 

 He went to the place where he saw him eating it, 

 and found it partially eaten. I send it with the 

 others. You will find a ticket on it to distinguish 

 it from the rest. Duncan M'Pherson saw with his 

 glass a hind last week (December 1883) eating a 

 horn also ; he did not find the horn, but he saw the 



1 One of these horns was subsequently figured in Natu7-e, 

 December 20, 1883. 



