TttE HORNS AND ANTLERS OF RUMINANTS. 285 



a Wapiti stag in the same park, which, having killed one man and 

 treed two others, subsequently held at bay for a considerable 

 period a rescue party composed of three resolute men, each 

 armed with a pitchfork and stimulated by the expectation of 

 saving life. 



No cervine species, however, has been made the subject of 

 such full and satisfactory observation as the wild Red-deer among 

 the bare hills of North Britain, where, as Sir Samuel Baker has 

 remarked with truth, "the great numbers of Deer, and the 

 facilities for acquiring a knowledge of their habits, offer a more 

 than ordinary advantage, and yield information that would be 

 difficult to obtain elsewhere. " The comparative indifference of 

 frontal weapons in sexual combat between individuals of a species 

 is here forcibly illustrated by the fact that neither abnormality nor 

 absence of cranial armature constitutes any apparent hindrance 

 to success in battle. Stags with one antler recurved goat-like, or 

 with both antlers abnormally fashioned in this way, or with a 

 single, though normal, antler, or without antlers at all, are found 

 to win and hold their harem against normally armed stags of 

 similar size and weight, and to meet and conquer these, not on 

 occasion only, but year by year on their own beat, till overcome 

 in turn by a younger stag or killed with a bullet. Ears are split 

 and eyes are sometimes put out, as shown by occasional one-eyed 

 stags, and sometimes a point may reach the brain through the 

 cavity of the orbit, or gore the flank of the beaten Deer as he 

 turns to run; but, omitting the split ears, the above are except 

 tional cases, and it seems a probable estimate that, on an average 

 of seasons, not more than one stag out of two hundred will meet 

 his death by fighting.* The rarity of sanguinary hurts or fatal 

 injuries has, in fact, been a subject of surprise to the careful 

 observer since the days of the Stuarts half-a-century ago. 



In regard to the sexual combats of Sheep, anyone who 

 happens to witness a fight between black-faced Highland rams 

 in the breeding season will satisfy himself that the ponderous 



* This estimate refers to the fighting stags only, and was suggested (at 

 my request) by a gentleman who has investigated in detail the amount and 

 causes of natural death among wild Eed-deer, and to whom I am also 

 indebted for the preceding facts, all of which have come under his personal 

 observation. 



