■Chap. 50.] 
STAGS. 
301 
are unarmed. Still, however, they envy us the good that these 
might do us ; for it is said the right horn, which possesses, as it 
were, certain medicinal properties, can never be found, a circum- 
stance the more astonishing, from the fact that they change their 
horns every year, even when kept in parks ; it is generally 
thought that they bury their horns in the ground. The odour 
of either horn, when burnt, drives away serpents and detects 
epilepsy. They also bear the marks of their age on the horns, 
every year, up to the sixth, a fresh antler being added ; after 
which period the horns are renewed in the same state, so that 
by means of them their age cannot be ascertained. Their old 
age, however, is indicated by their teeth, for then they have 
only a few, or none at all ; and we then no longer perceive, at 
the base of their horns, antlers projecting from the front of the 
forehead, as is usually the case with the animal when young. 
When this animal is castrated it does not shed its horns, nor 
are they reproduced. When the horns begin to be reproduced, 
two projections are to be seen, much resembling, at first, dry 
skin ; they grow with tender shoots, having upon them a soft 
down like that on the head of a reed. So long as they are 
without horns, they go to feed during the night. As the 
horns grow, they harden by the heat of the sun, and the 
animal, from time to time, tries their strength upon the trees ; 
when satisfied with their strength, it leaves its retreat. 
Stags, too, have been occasionally caught with ivy green 
and growing on their horns, the plant having taken root 
on them, as it would on any piece of wood, while the animal 
was rubbing them against the trees. The stag is sometimes 
found white, as is said to have been the case with the hind 
of Q. Sertorius, which he persuaded the nations of Spain to 
look upon as having the gift of prophecy. The stag, too, 
^0 Aristotle, uhi supra, ^lian, uhi supra, and B. iii. c. 17, and Theo- 
phrastus, in a fragment on the Envious among Animals, agree in stating 
that one of the horns (►f the stag is never found, although they differ re- 
specting the individual horn, whether the right one or the left. Aristotle 
says that it is the left, while Theophrastus and ^lian agree with the state- 
ment of Pliny. — B. 
^1 Cuvier says, that no antlers are added after the eighth year. — B. 
^2 This, as well as most of the statements respecting the growth of the 
horns, is mentioned by Aristotle, iibi supra, but it is quite unfounded. — B. 
^ This story of the white hind of Sertorius, is given in detail by Aulus 
Gellius, B. XV. c. 22, who tells us that it was given to him by a native of 
Lusitania, upon which Sertorius pretended that it had been sent from 
