224 British Deer and their Horns 
Female birds also occasionally assume the male plumage and lay eggs that are perfectly 
fertile. 
And now perhaps, gentle reader, you will think that I have “ bucked ” enough for one 
day, for the comprehensive naturalist must look upon our deer and their horns as but 
poor things ; but then, after all, they are our own ! And he is a feeble patriot indeed 
who does not think his own creatures and forms of the chase the best. At any rate, the 
annual “ trek ” to the North is a proof of the popularity of deer-stalking ; and as for the study 
of heads, well, I have only striven to impart some of the love of beautiful things which I 
feel myself for the glories of nature. To all true sportsmen that expenditure of “ gas ” about 
SOME REMARKABLE ABNORMAL GERMAN HEADS 
The head with two pairs of horns and the coalesced head on the left were originally in the collection of Colonel Geoffrey Von Klipstein, but are now in 
England. The coalesced head on the right is in the Munich Museum. The complete head in the centre is an extraordinary monstrosity ; the horny substance 
has exuded over the top of the head and covered the face like a mask, though the animal could see with one eye. It was alive when secured by H.R.H. Prince 
Frederick Charles of Prussia at Potsdam in December 1872 (from Furst Zoologie, p. 365). 
“ records,” unaccompanied by true appreciation of beauty, is both hateful and vulgar, and I 
should be more than sorry if anything in this work should arouse any possible contention. 
There is an old Gaelic toast given in Highland regiments which seems to me a fitting 
conclusion. It is as follows :— 
Here’s a health to our Queen (God bless her!) and the lads wi’ the kilt, and a health to the land o’ 
the hills and the heather, where the hungry are fed and the wild deer find shelter. 
THE END 
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh. 
