THE ROEBUCK : VIRTUE BETRAYEDe 
227 
comes to offer itself, to assist in tlie safety of the beast pursued ; 
and it is a wonder to see how all these charming runners under- 
stand each other, to create embarrassments for the pack. Imitate 
with a call, the fawn’s cry of distress, and all the roes will run to 
its assistance. Assassins without bowels of mercy odiously ex- 
ploit this instinct of maternal charity. 
Wo, alas ! to him who listens to the voice of charity in the ac- 
cursed societies ! 
Every beast that marries and takes charge of a family is forced, 
by this very fact, to work perpetually, to enlarge the sphere of 
its conservative instincts. The old roebuck, on whom the respon- 
sibility of a family weighs, brings still more science and combina- 
tion into his plans than the stag and the buck. Thus the roebuck 
is rarely coursed, and the hunter is in the habit of recurring to 
the aid of his gun. The roebuck is, after the wolf, hardest of all 
the beasts of our forests to be run down, and it is not only the 
strength of his hamstring that so often preserves him from the 
fate of the stag and the hare, it is rather the coolness that he dis- 
plays in the struggle, and the wise distribution with which he 
employs his resources. The stag, like the hare, in flying the pack 
which besets him, and whose clamor frightens him, will sometimes 
expend, in quarter of an hour’s haste, a considerable sum of force 
which better divided, would have allowed him to hold on an hour 
or two longer. And for not having spared his lungs, for having 
been in too great a hurry to leave the danger behind him, the fugi- 
tive is soon obliged to stop short, for his wind gives out before 
his legs. Now during this rest, the pack regains the ground it 
had lost ; then the stag vainly asks again from his hamstrings 
their first elasticity. 
It is almost always getting blown, that ruins the stag and hare, 
and many would escape their death did not fear so often make 
them rash and desperate. The roebuck is not troubled by dan- 
ger, he sports before the dogs, and willingly browzes ten steps 
from the basset that chases him. He stops very often, taking 
good care to screen himself by the trunk of a large tree, or a 
tuft of bushes. 
He listens with all his ears before leaping the path or the road 
