190 



MAMMALS. 



or sixteen points. The number of heads sent in now is enormous, 

 Mr. Macleay in the season of 1892 receiving over five hundred, 

 and most of these were from the north-west side of the Caledonian 

 Canal. Of course there are many heads that go elsewhere to be 

 preserved ; some sportsmen only preserve one or two of the very 

 best trophies of the season, perhaps out of sixty or seventy stags 

 killed, so that the number of deer shot each season through the 

 Highlands must be something enormous, especially when we 

 remember, in addition, that through the winter the foresters are 

 engaged in killing the full complements of hinds. 



An open winter, if followed by a fine spring (this latter, per- 

 haps, being the most important season), is pretty sure to be 

 followed by a season producing good heads : this was ver}^ notice- 

 able in the year 1893. The previous winter and spring were very 

 open, and the autumn proved a record one for heads, including 

 Lord Burton's celebrated twenty-pointer, which was shot in Glen 

 Quoich. That year some seven hundred stags' heads were sent in 

 to Mr. Macleay's establishment in Inverness, and among them 

 were some, to our idea, far finer than Lord Burton's twenty- 

 pointer, being thicker in the beam, and wider set, though not 

 carrying anything like the number of points. In this respect Lord 

 Burton's must be the record for Scotland, and likely to remain so. 



Occasionally stags are ^ hummel,' i.e. hornless, even when not 

 castrated, but there seems to be always a slight swelling of the 

 bone where the horns should be. This, too, is the case when 

 there is only one horn more or less perfect, the other side having 

 a corresponding knob. One was killed in 1886 at Invergarry by 

 Captain Ellice, who writes us : — ' I killed a very curious one- 

 horned stag; we had known him about five years, and he has 

 never had more than one horn. He was always one of the first to 

 come into season. The skull on the hornless side is quite smooth, 

 except for a very little knob ' (in lit. 2/xii/86). This occurs also 

 in an example we shot in Sutherland. 



Captain Ellice of Invergarry informs us that about eight or nine 

 years ago 'some pure white deer (Cervus elaphus) were turned out; 

 these have done very well, and are now wild in the woods, and 

 cross freely with the ordinary Red Deer. As yet the calves have all 

 been pure white, without any spot or tinge of red' (in lit. 1885). 



Later, in 1887, Captain Ellice writes: — 'Our white stag was 



