28 



Introductory 



muntjacs, rocs, and musks, go about, either during the breeding-season or 

 permanently, in pairs, or even singly. During the season of the renewal of 

 the antlers the stags of the gregarious species, however, become solitary ; 

 and in the case of woodland species are extremely careful of their move- 

 ments. As the antlers mature and the velvet dries up, the animals become 

 bolder. They at first select the stems of yielding saplings as rubbing-posts 

 tor removing the tattered remnants of the velvet, but in a few days endeavour 

 to clean off the last remaining shreds by rubbing their antlers against the 

 rugged bark of any tree that may be convenient. 



Although in a wild state deer flee from man and their other enemies 

 with the greatest precipitation, yet they have a strong spice of curiosity in 

 their disposition, and may frequently be attracted within range by the sight 

 of any moving object with the nature of which they are unacquainted, such 

 as a cap or hat mounted on a pole and slowly waved about above a fence. 

 This spirit of curiosity is much more strongly developed in the hinds than 

 in the stags, the former being always the first to approach a strange object, 

 as they are to come up to be fed in a park. The stags seem, indeed, to 

 be largely dependent on the hinds as to their movements in all cases 

 of doubt. 



At the pairing-season the adult stags of all the larger species, as well as 

 many of those of the smaller kinds, exchange their habitually peaceful dis- 

 position and become extremely pugnacious towards one another. Even 

 this warlike disposition is, however, chiefly the result of mutual jealousy, 

 for in a wild condition it appears to be only very rarely that they attack 

 other creatures. With deer kept in confinement, even when their paddocks 

 are very extensive, the case is very different ; and there are few more 

 spiteful or more dangerous beasts than an old wapiti stag at such seasons. 

 W hen in this condition the males of the larger species are by no means 

 prepossessing in appearance. They stalk about with the face-glands everted, 

 the head stretched out, and the blood-shot eyes rolling in a peculiarly 

 wicked-looking manner ; the gait at the same time being curiously stiff 

 and stilted, while at every obstacle to their progress the head is lowered 

 and vicious sweeps are made with the antlers. Sometimes, apparently out 

 of pure spitefulness, the antlers are thrust deep into a bank of sand or clay, 

 and the broken soil tossed about in all directions. Often, too, they wallow 

 in the mud and thus make themselves still more unsightly objects. 



