THE RED DEER 
wood close to the home policies or the stalker’s house, or away up in 
some hidden corrie amongst the clouds where man seldom comes. If the 
weather is fine in August and September the best stags are generally 
found very high up, in parties of ten to one hundred or more, and like to 
frequent steep hill faces under the wind, where they have commanding 
views below and in which they can receive all eddying winds from the 
tops or sides. 
Hinds are generally found in big herds in winter, usually feeding much 
lower than the stags. These herds break up as fine weather and the spring 
come on, gradually forming into calving parties of from ten to twenty 
in May and June. Many individual hinds, however, go off by themselves 
and hide their calves in young wood, bracken or rocks. 
It might be supposed that large numbers of stags and hinds would die 
In the winter in Scotland owing to the privations they have to undergo; 
but this is not the case. In the first place Red deer are very hardy animals 
and seldom die from exposure if they can obtain food. The time when 
great mortality takes place is chiefly in the spring — in the month of April, 
when the first flush of new grass comes up. This is greedily eaten by the 
deer in their impoverished condition, and the consequence is scouring 
and death to those in the worst state. Thus the race is pruned of 
weaklings, though even this does not prevent the deterioration due to 
overcrowding. 
Hinds calve at three years old in a wild state, and in parks at two. They 
usually have one young one at a birth, though there are now many instances 
of twins amongst Red deer. In the Highlands calving usually takes place 
between June 10 and 20, and in the south of England on May 28 and the 
following week. The young are at first carefully hidden and suckled by 
the mother at night, in the early morning, and evening. If suddenly 
surprised the calves keep still till the last moment, and then dash off on 
tottering legs towards the mother, who is generally circling round close 
at hand. A calf can gallop a good distance at full speed with the mother, 
who will head it suddenly to some fresh piece of covert and force it to lie 
down again by pressing down its hindquarters with her chin. Even before 
the young are dropped hinds have an instinctive antagonism to dogs, and 
will boldly charge any small one that comes near them, striking out 
with their fore feet. A small spaniel of mine was nearly killed by an infu- 
riated hind whose calf I was photographing. She knocked the dog over 
three times, and had there not been a fenced-in covert close by, the spaniel 
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