STAG 
195 
criminations between two animals, one of which 
is among the swiftest, and the other the heaviest 
of the brute creation. * 
The stag is one of those' innocent and peaceable 
animals that seems made to embellish the forest, 
and animate the solitudes of nature. The easy 
elegance of his form, the lightness of his motion*, 
those large branches that seem made rather for 
the ornament of his head than its defence, the size, 
the strength, and the swiftness of this beautiful 
creature, all sufficiently rank him among the first 
of quadrupeds, among the most noted objects of 
human curiosity. 
The stag, or hart, whose female is called the 
hind, and the young a calf, differs in size and in 
horns from a fallow deer. He is much larger, 
and his horns are round ; whereas in the fallow 
kind they are broad and palmated. By these the 
animal’s age is known. The first year the stag 
has no horns, but a horny excrescence, which is 
short, rough, and covered with a thin, hairy skin. 
The next year the horns are single and straight ; 
the third year they have, two antlers, three the 
fourth, four the fifth, and five the sixth ; this 
number is not always certain, for sometimes there 
are more, and often less. When arrived at tire 
sixth year, the antlers do not always increase ; and 
although the number may amount to six or seven 
on each side, yet the animal's age is then estimated 
rather from the size of the antlers, and the thick- 
ness ©f the branch which sustains them, than from 
their variety. These horns, large as they seem, 
are, notwithstanding, shed every year, and new 
ones come in their place. The old horns are of a 
firm, solid texture. But while young, nothing 
can be more soft or tender ; and the animal, as if 
conscious of his own imbecility at those times, 
instantly upoii sheading his former horns, retires. 
