96 THE WONDERS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



mother, and young go together, and never mix with strangers. They are constant in their amours, 

 and never unfaithful like the stag. Though always together, they feel the ardour of the rut but once 

 a year, and it continues only fifteen days, commencing at the end of October. During this period 

 they do not suffer their fawns to remain with them ; but after the rutting-season is past, these return to 

 their mother and remain with her some time, after which they separate for ever, and remove to a 

 distance. The female goes with young five months and a half, and brings forth about the end of 

 April, producing two at a time, which she is very careful to conceal, although, in spite of her vigilance, 

 the young are sometimes carried off by men, dogs, or wolves. 



The roebuck is a tender animal, incapable of bearing great cold. According to Buffon, the species 

 in Burgundy, in the hard winter of 1709, was almost destroyed, and many years passed before it was 

 restored again. In Pennant it is stated, that in Scotland it is found very difficult to rear the fawns, 

 it being computed that eight out of ten of those that are taken from their parents die. This, however, 

 may not be so much attributable to the climate as to the sudden change of food, and its not agreeing 

 with the natural constitution of the animal. 



The flesh of the roebuck is reckoned a most delicate food. In summer it feeds on grass, and is 

 very fond of the rubus saxatilis, called in the Highlands the roebuck-berry ; but in the winter-time, 

 when the ground is covered with snow, it browses on the tender branches of fir and birch. 



According to the Leges Wallica, a roebuck was valued at the same price as a she-goat ; a stag at 

 the price of an ox, and a fallow r -deer was esteemed equal to a cow, or, as some report, to a she-goat. 



It may not be deemed irrelevant to our present subject, to shew that by the aid of comparative 

 anatomy, Ireland was once the domicile of the roebuck, and various kinds of deer, which are not only 

 scarce in the old world, but some of the species appear to be actually extinct, so that they may be 

 possibly ranked among those remains which fossilists distinguish by the title of Diluvian. The horns, 

 which are often found in Ireland, are evidently of the stag-kind, but much stronger, thicker, heavier, 

 and furnished with finer antlers than those of the present race. Those found in Ireland must be 

 referred to the elk-kind, but of a species different from the European, being provided with brow antlers, 

 in which the former are deficient ; neither are they of the moose-deer, or American, which entirely 

 agrees with the elk of Europe, and entire skeletons of which are sometimes met with lodged in a white 

 marl. Some of these horns are nearly twelve feet between tip and tip ; but not the faintest account, 

 traditional or historical, is left of the existence of these animals in our kingdom. 



