66 



Elaphine Group 



winter, 1 the caudal disk being pale straw, passing into white on the inner 

 side of the thighs, and in adults bordered by a blackish band ; face, throat, 

 legs, and under-parts more or less slaty gray ; antlers, when fully developed, 

 attaining great complexity in the crown, the number of points on each 

 frequently reaching twelve or fourteen. 



As in the other varieties, the summer pelage is short and glistening, 

 but that of winter is longer and rougher. During the summer the head 

 and legs are grayer than the body, and the throat of a still paler gray, the 

 fringe of long hair on the throat attaining its greatest development in the 

 breeding-season. Regarding the colour of the European form, Mr. A. 

 Gordon Cameron writes as follows : " It is the fashion nowadays to say 

 that red deer are not red, but the present writer is not of this opinion. 

 Place a band of deer, whether stags or hinds, among green bracken under 

 an August sun, and it will be seen at once that red deer are rightly named. 

 While red is the prevailing colour, deer are met with in all shades, from 

 dark brown, verging on black, to pale cream or dun, verging on white. 

 Black deer and white deer are on record. Attempts to establish any fixed 

 rule or relation between colour and condition — e.g. that good stags are 

 iron gray, or that good hinds (to shoot) are blue — seem scarcely justified 

 by facts, for plenty of good stags and hinds are red or yellow by nature, 

 and the pink of condition will do no more than put an extra gloss on their 

 coats. Wasting deer tend to grow paler in colour, and look ragged 

 from loss of bloom." In park deer, spots, especially along the middle of 

 the back, are occasionally visible in the summer pelage. 



The typical red deer varies greatly in point of bodily size and in the 

 relative development of its antlers. The largest examples are met with in 

 the forests of the Continent, and the smallest in islands, such as Harris. 

 The antlers of Scotch hill deer, although comparatively small, yield to none 

 in symmetry of form and gracefulness. By far the finest series of antlers 

 in existence are those preserved in the King of Saxony's castle at Moritz- 

 burg, near Dresden, many of which have been figured by Dr. A. B. Meyer 

 in the work cited in the Appendix. Among these, specimens with twelve, 

 thirteen, and fourteen, or even more points on each side are by no means 

 uncommon. Sir Victor Brooke observes that " a comparison of the gigantic 

 antlers of the red deer of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries 



1 Park deer frequently remain more or less red throughout the year. 



