STAG-HORN WOUNDS DANGEROUS. 259 



thought but little of it, he told us, having often had more serious 

 wounds before, though not from a stag's horn, that gave hardly 

 any trouble, and soon healed of themselves — of the first intention, 

 as the surgeons have it. How it may fare with him among the 

 Glasgow doctors we do not know : well, poor fellow, we siucerely 

 hope, though we shouldn't wonder if the wound continued to 

 trouble him all his life long. The subject of stag-horn wounds 

 having thus been brought before us in a way that could not fail to 

 interest us, we took the matter to avizandum, as the sheriffs say ; 

 and, in dearth of anything better at this dull season, we present 

 our readers with the result of our inquiries in every direction 

 whence there was the least chance of enlightenment. Dogs wounded 

 by stags' horns usually die from mortification or gangrene of the 

 wound ; and even if the wound heals, and they recover, it is only 

 in an unsatisfactory sort of way, for they are almost always after- 

 wards paralytic in the wounded limb, or they are epileptic. An 

 old forester, who knows more about deer and deerhounds than 

 anybody else we ever met, tells us that in very few instances has 

 he ever known a dog that has actually bled at the touch of a stag's 

 horn, recover in such wise as to be fairly serviceable again. With 

 the least drop of blood in such cases, they seem to lose all their 

 courage. Another man, a shepherd near us, says that a very fine 

 coUie dog of his was once severely wounded by a stag in Glenarkaig, 

 on Lochiel's estate, and that although the wound healed satis- 

 factorily enough, and to the eye of an ordinary observer there was 

 nothing the matter with the dog, it was, in fact, ever afterwards 

 perfectly useless. " Chaidh e gbrach, le'r cead." A good dog 

 before, "he became perfectly stupid, sir!" said the man. The 

 above-mentioned forester says that the poisonous character of stag- 

 hom wounds is well known to every one in the least acquainted 

 with deer-stalking, as the sport was followed in the good old ante- 

 breech-loading rifle days, when explosive bullets were yet unknown ; 



