Chapter 2

[C]The stag in Greek ελαφος; in Latincervus, in Italiancervo; in Spanishciervo; in Portugueseveado; in Germanhirsch; in Danishhiort; in Swedishkronhjort; in Dutchhert; in Polishjelenie.

The Stag is one of those mild, peaceable, and innocent animals, which seem created to adorn and animate the solitudes of the forest, and to occupy, remote from man, the peaceful retreats of Nature. His light and elegant form, his flexible yet nervous limbs, his grandeur, strength, and swiftness, his head, rather adorned than armed with living branches, which, like the leaves of a tree, are every year renewed, sufficiently distinguish him from the other inhabitants of the forest. As he is the noblestamong these, he has been made subservient to the pleasures, and employed the leisure of the greatest heroes. The exercise of the chace may well succeed, or should rather precede the fatigues of war. To be acquainted with the management of horses and arms are talents equally common to the warrior and the hunter. A familiarity with address, bodily exercise and fatigue, so necessary to support courage, are found in the chace, and carried into the field of battle. Hunting is an agreeable school of a necessary art; the only amusement which entirely detaches diversion from business; the only recreation that is totally unaccompanied with effeminacy, and always produces a lively pleasure, that never satiates or cloys. In what manner can those men be better employed who, from their situations, are constantly fatigued with company, than in hunting? Continually, as it were, beset with a multitude, exposed to the importunity of their demands, forced to attend to the affairs of others, to embark in matters of the greatest concern, and, in effect, to be the more constrained in proportion to the elevation of their stations; great men would only feel the irksome weight of grandeur, and exist only for others, if they did not occasionally abstract themselves from acrowd of attendant flatterers. To enjoy themselves in real social affections, to preserve private friendships, to nourish sentiments a thousand times more precious than all the ideas of grandeur, they have need of retirement from the bustle of business, and what retirement can afford greater variety, or be accompanied with more animation than the chace? what exercise can be more beneficial to the body? what relaxation more agreeable to the mind?

To be always acting, or holding intercourse with man, would be as fatiguing as perpetual thinking. Man is not intended by Nature for the contemplation of abstract matters; to occupy himself in different pursuits, to lead a sedentary life, and to make his study his centre of existence, is, by no means, a natural situation, any more than it is to be perpetually agitated by the caprices of other men, and to be continually constrained to keep a guard over his looks, words, and actions. Whatever ideas we may entertain of ourselves, it is evident that to personate is not to be, and that we are less calculated to think than to act, to reason that to enjoy. True pleasure consists in the unrestrained use of ourselves. Our best possessions are those we have from Nature. It is the air and the earth, the plains and the forests,that yield us full enjoyments, full of utility, and never to be exhausted. A taste for the chace, fishing, gardening, and agriculture, is therefore natural to all men; and in societies more simple than ours there subsists but two orders both relative to this mode of life; the nobles, whose employment is war and hunting, and the lower people whose sole office is the cultivation of the earth.

In polished societies, where every thing is refined and brought to perfection, to render the pleasures of the chace more lively and delightful, and to ennoble an exercise which is in itself noble and beneficial, it has been formed into an art. The chace of the stag requires a species of knowledge which can only be acquired by experience; it supposes a royal assemblage of men, horses, and hounds, all so practised, trained and disciplined, as by their mutual intelligence to contribute to one end. The huntsman ought to be able to judge of the age and sex of the animal. He should be able to distinguish exactly whether the stag which his hound hasharboured, be abrock, or a staggard; whether it be a young stag, not passed his seventh year, or an old one: the principal data to obtain this knowledge from, are the print of his foot, or his excrement. The foot of the stagis better formed than that of the hind; herleg[D]is larger and nearer to the heel. His steps leave rounder impressions, and are further asunder; he walks more regularly, and brings the hind foot exactly into the impression made by the fore foot; whereas the paces of the hind are not only shorter, but her hind foot does not so regularly fall into the track of her fore foot. A stag of the fourth head, that is, has acquired his fourth horns are easily distinguished; but it requires much experience to know the foot of a young stag from that of a hind. A stag of six or seven years is still more easily distinguished, for his fore feet are much larger than his hind ones, and the older he grows the thicker, or more worn, are the sides of his feet; the distance of his steps are also more regular, his hind foot resting always with tolerable exactness upon the track of his fore foot, unless when they shed their horns, when the old stag is as liable to mistake as the young ones, though in a different manner, and with a regularity unknown to the young stag or the hind, for they rest the hind foot always at the side of the fore one, and never either beyond or within that reach.

[D]By thelegis understood the two bones at the lower extremity behind the foot, which leave an impression upon the ground as well as the foot.

In the dry season, when the huntsman cannot judge by the footstep, he is obliged to return upon the track of the animal, and endeavour to find his dung. To be able to determine by which requires perhaps more experience than a knowledge of the footsteps, yet without it the huntsman could not make a just report to the sportsmen assembled. When, in consequence of this report, the dogs are led to the shelter of the stag, the huntsman should know how to animate his hound, and make him rest upon the track of the stag until he be dislodged. Instantly the horn is sounded to uncouple the dogs, which the huntsman should encourage both by the horn and his voice; he should also carefully mark the footsteps of his stag, that he may discover if he should start another, and substitute him in his place; it will, in that case, sometimes happen that the dogs will divide and form a double chace; when so, the huntsmen should divide also and recall those dogs which have thus gone astray. The huntsman should always accompany his dogs, and continue to animate without pressing them too hard; he should also assist them in order to prevent their being deceived by the stag, who will try a number of artifices to elude them; he will frequently trace andretrace his own steps, mix with others, and endeavour to draw a young one to accompany him, and so put a change upon the dogs; he will then redouble his speed, dart off one side, or lie down upon his belly to conceal himself. In this case, when the dogs have lost his foot, the huntsman and the hounds labour in conjunction to recover it; but if unable to hit upon his track, they conclude he is resting within the circuit they have made; if their endeavours continue unsuccessful, they have no other way left them than to take a view of the country, which may give them an idea of the place of his refuge. When discovered, and the dogs are again put upon his track, they pursue with more advantage, as they perceive that the stag is fatigued; their ardor augments in proportion as his strength diminishes; and their perception is more lively, as the animal becomes heated; they then redouble their cries and their efforts, and though he is now more full of stratagems than ever, yet as his swiftness diminishes, his doublings and artifices become less effectual, and he has no other resource but to abandon the earth which has betrayed him, and get into the water to make the dogs lose their scent. The huntsmen traverse these waters,and again put the dogs upon the track of his foot; after which he is incapable of running far, and reduced to the last extremity, stands at bay.

He still endeavours to defend his life, and often wounds dogs, horses, and even huntsmen with his horns, until one of them ham-string him that he may fall, and then put him to death by a stroke of his hanger. They then celebrate the death of the stag with a flourish of horns, and the dogs partake of the victory by their perquisite of his flesh.

All seasons are not alike proper for hunting the stag. In spring, when the forests begin to be cloathed with leaves, and the earth to be covered with verdure and flowers, their odour diminishes the scent of the hounds, and as the stag is then in his full strength it is difficult for them to overtake him. The huntsman also agree that the season when the hinds are about to bring forth is that in which the chace is attended with the most difficulty; and that, at that time the dogs will quit a fatigued stag, to follow any hind that gambols before them: and in like manner, at the beginning of autumn, which is the stag’s rutting season, the blood-hounds lose all their ardour in hunting; the strong scent of the rut probably renders the track less distinguishable, and very possibly thescent of all stags is at this season nearly the same. In winter, when the snow lies on the ground, it is also improper to hunt the stag, as the hounds have no scent, and appear to follow the track rather by the sight than the smell. At this season, as the stags find not sufficient food in the forests, they issue forth into the open country, and go even into inclosures and cultivated lands. They unite in herds in the month of December, and when the frosts are severe, they endeavour to find shelter by the side of a hill or in a thicket, where they lie close, and keep themselves warm by means of their breath. At the end of winter they frequent the borders of the forests, and frequently destroy the rising corn. In spring they shed their horns, which fall off spontaneously, or by a small effort after entangling them with the branch of some tree. It is seldom that the horns of both sides fall at the same time, there usually being an interval of a day or two between them. The old stags shed their horns first, which happens about the end of February, or beginning of March; those in the seventh year in the middle of March; those in the sixth year, the beginning of April; the young stags, those from three to five years old, the beginning, and the prickets not till the middle, or latter end ofMay. But in all this there is much variety, for old stags sometimes shed their horns later than those which are young; besides they are more forward in casting their horns when the winter has been mild, than when severe and of a long continuance.

After the stags have cast their horns they separate, the young ones only keeping together. They remain no longer in deep covert, but seek the beautiful part of the country, and continue among the coppices during the summer, and until their antlers are renewed. In this season they carry their heads low for fear of rubbing their horns against the branches, for they are very tender until they arrive at perfection. The horns of the eldest stags are not more than half renewed by the middle of May, nor acquire their full growth and hardness before the end of July; the younger stags are later both in shedding and having them renewed; but when completely lengthened and hardened, they rub them against the trees to clear them from a scurf with which they are covered; and as they continue this practice for several days successively, it has been said their horns receive a tint from the juices of the trees against which they are rubbed; that they derive a red cast from the beech and birch, a brown one from the oak, and a black one from the elm, or trembling poplars. It is also asserted that the horns of the young stags, which are smoother and unpearled, are not so much tinged as those of the old ones, which are rougher, and covered with these pearlings, which retain the sap of the tree. But I cannot be persuaded that this is the true cause, for I have had tame stags shut up in inclosures, where there was not a single tree, whose horns were, nevertheless, coloured in the same manner as those of other stags.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

FIG. 54.Stag.

FIG. 55.Hind.

Soon after the stag (fig. 54.) has polished his horns he begins to feel an inclination for the females, and in which respect the oldest are most forward. By the end of August, or beginning of September, they leave the coppice, return to the forest, and begin to search out for favourite hinds; (fig. 55.) they cry with a loud voice, their necks and throats swell, they grow restless, and traverse the fallow grounds and plains in open day, and they dart their horns against the trees and hedges; in a word they seem transported with fury, and range from place to place till they have found their females, whom they then have to pursue and overcome, as the hind flies from him, and never becomes subservient to his passion until she is subdued by fatigue: those hinds whichare most advanced in years are first in season. If two stags approach the same hind a combat must precede the enjoyment; if their strength is nearly equal, they threaten, plough up the earth with their paws, make a terrible noise, and dart upon each other with the utmost fury, carry on their battles to such extremities that they often inflict mortal wounds with their horns; nor is the combat ever concluded but by the defeat or flight of one of them. The conqueror loses not an instant to enjoy the fruits of his victory, unless another male happens to appear, when he is again obliged to quit his mate, and put him to flight as he had done the other. The oldest stags are sure to gain the battle, because they are more fierce and stronger than the young ones, who are obliged to wait patiently until their seniors are satisfied and quit the hind; though sometimes indeed, they take the advantage while the two old ones are fighting, and then make a precipitate retreat. The hinds also prefer the old stags, not merely because they are the most valiant, but because they are more ardent. They are also the most inconstant, and commonly have several females at the same time; and when they happen to have but one, they remain attached to her but a very few days,when they go in search of a second, with whom they remain a still shorter time, and then wander from female to female until they are quite exhausted. This amorous fury, however, lasts not above three weeks, during which time they eat but little, and are strangers to all repose; night and day are they on foot, ranging about, fighting with the males, or enjoying the females, and of course, when the rutting season is over, they are so wasted, meagre, and fatigued, that they require a length of time to recover their strength. They then retire to the borders of the forests and graze on the best cultivated lands, where they find food in abundance, and where they continue until their strength is restored.

The rutting time among the old stags commences about the first and concludes about the 20th of September; with those in the sixth or seventh year it begins in the middle of September, and ends the beginning of October; with the young stags it begins about the 20th of September and lasts to the 15th of October, by the end of which month the rutting is all over, except among the prickets, who, as well as the young hinds, are the latest in coming in season; thus by the beginning of November the rutting time is entirely finished; and atthat time the stags, being in their weakest state, are most easily hunted down. In those seasons when acorns are plentiful they recover in a very short time, and a second rut will take place towards the end of October, but this is always of a much shorter duration than the first. In warmer climates, as the seasons are more forward, so is the rutting time. Aristotle has told us that in Greece it commences at the beginning of August, and concludes towards the end of September. The hinds carry their young eight months and a few days, and seldom produce more than one fawn; they bring forth in May or the beginning of June; they take the greatest care to conceal their fawns, and will even present themselves to be chased, in order to draw off the dogs, and afterwards return to take care of their young. All hinds are not prolific, and some of them are even barren: these kinds are more gross and fat than the others, and are sooner in heat. It is also said that some hinds have horns like the stags, and this is not void of probability. The fawns are not so called after the sixth month, then the knobs begin to appear, and they take the name of knobbers, which they bear until their horns lengthen into spears, and then they are called brocks, orprickets. Though they grow very fast, they do not quit their mothers all the first summer. In winter they all resort together, and their herds are more numerous as the season is more severe; in the spring they divide; the hinds retiring to bring forth, and it is only the prickets and young stags which then keep together. In general stags are inclined to associate, and it is only from fear or necessity that they are ever found dispersed. At 18 months the stags are capable of engendering, for those brought forth in the spring of the preceding year will couple with the hinds in autumn, and it is to be presumed that such copulations are prolific. If any thing can create a doubt on this subject, it is that the stags have not then attained more than half their growth, for they continue increasing in size till their eighth year, and to that period their horns continue to augment. But it is to be observed that the young fawns gain strength in a little time, that his growth is very quick, both in the first and second years, and that it has already a redundance of nourishment, because it shoots forth its knobs, which are certain indications of its ability to engender. Animals in general, it is true, are not in a condition to procreate till they have nearly acquired their full growth;but those which have certain times allotted for copulation, or spawning, seem to be an exception to this rule: fishes spawn and produce young before they have attained a fourth, or even an eighth of their full growth, and among quadrupeds, those that like the stag, elk, fallow-deer &c. have the rutting time precisely marked, copulate sooner than other animals.

There are so many affinities between the nutrition, the production of the horns, the rutting and the generation of these animals, that, for the better conception of the particular effects that flow from them, it is necessary to recapitulate a few of the general principles of procreation. It depends solely on the redundancy of nourishment; as long as the growth of the body continues, (and it is always in early age that this growth is quickest) the nourishment is totally employed in this operation; at that period, therefore, there is no superabundance, consequently no production, no secretion of the seminal fluid, and hence it is that young animals are not in a condition to engender; but when their growth is nearly acquired, the redundancy begins to manifest itself by new productions. In the human race, the beard, hair, increase of the breasts, and organs of generation, appear at the age of puberty. In the brute creation, and particularlythe stag, the redundancy manifests itself by effects still more sensible, as the shooting of the horns, the swelling of the neck and throat, the rutting, &c. and as the stag is very quick at first in his growth, a year does not pass before this redundance shews itself, by the appearance of his horns. If brought forth in May the horns begin to appear in the May following, and they continue to increase to the end of August, by which time they are full grown, and so hard that he rubs them against the trees to clear them of the scurf; the fat also at this time begins to accumulate, is determined towards the parts of generation, and excites in the stag that ardour and desire which renders him so furious. That the production of horns, and power for generation, proceed from the same cause is evident, for by castration the growth of the horns is effectually prevented; if this operation is performed after he has shed his horns they will never be renewed, and if done when they are perfect he will never shed them again; in fact he will remain all the rest of his life in the same state as when he suffered castration; and as he no longer experiences the ardour of the rut, so the accompanying signs also disappear, and he becomes a tame and peaceable animal. From hence it appearsthat the retrenched parts were necessary for collecting and diffusing them over his whole body in the form of fat, particularly at the top of the head where it gives rise to the horns. It is true, indeed, that castrated stags become fat, but the productions of their horns ceases, their necks and throats never swell, and their fat is very different from that of the perfect stag, which in the rutting season is so very strong as not only to render the flesh uneatable but offensive to the smell, and will corrupt in a very short time, while that of the former may be long preserved sweet, and eaten at all times. Another proof that the horns are produced by a redundance of the nutritive juices may be drawn from the circumstance, that those of stags of the same age will be either thick or thin, in proportion to the supply of food; for the stag which lives in a plentiful country, where he feeds at his pleasure, and rests at his ease, undisturbed by dogs or men, will always have much larger and more beautiful antlers than he who has scanty subsistence, and is disturbed in his repose; so that it is easy to determine by the horns of a stag whether he have inhabited a rich and quiet country. Those also which are in bad health, have been wounded, or frequently disturbed by hunting,have seldom fine horns or good flesh; they are later in beginning to rut, and their horns are neither shed nor renewed so early as others. Thus every circumstance concurs to prove, that the horns, like the seminal fluid, are merely the redundant superfluity of the organic juices which cannot be employed in developing and supporting the animal body.

It is the insufficiency of food, therefore, that retards the growth of the horns and diminishes their size; and perhaps it would not be impossible, by scanty diet, greatly to prevent their growth without having recourse to castration. It is certain that castrated stags eat less than others; and the reason the females of this species, as well as the fallow deer, the roe, and the elk, have no horns, is because they eat less than the males, and because at the very time the redundance would naturally happen, and appear externally, they are with young, and consequently the superfluous juices are first employed in nourishing the fœtus and afterwards in producing milk for the fawn. The objection that the female rein deer is furnished with horns rather supports what is here advanced; for of all quadrupeds which have horns, the rein deer has by much the largest in proportion to his size, as they frequently extend the whole length ofhis body; he also abounds more in fat, and those of the females are very small comparatively with those of the male; the instance therefore only serves to prove, that when the redundancy exceeds what can be exhausted by gestation, it diffuses itself outwardly in the same manner as that of the males. These remarks respecting nourishment, are not, however, to be applied to the quantity of provisions, but solely to the quantity of organic molecules which they contain; the latter being that active and prolific matter which supports animate beings, and the former a dead mass which has no effect upon the body of the animal; and as thelichen rangiferinus, which is the ordinary food of the rein deer, is a more substantial nutriment than the leaves, bark, or buds of trees, on which the common stag feeds, it is not wonderful that the former should have a greater redundance of organic nutriment, and consequently more fat and larger horns than the latter. It must be allowed, however, that the organic matter, which produces these horns, is not entirely separated from inanimate particles, but preserves even after it has passed through the body of the animal, characteristics of its former vegetable state. The horns of the stag in their make and growth resemble the branches of a tree; andits substance is perhaps more of the nature of wood than bone; it is, as it were, a vegetable grafted upon animal, partaking of the nature of both, and forms one of those shades by which nature always approximates to the two extremes.

In animals the bones grow at the two extremities at the same time, at first becomes hard in the middle, and at the two ends continue soft and receding therefrom until it has acquired its full length. In vegetables, on the contrary, the wood advances by one extremity only; the bud which unfolds to form a branch is only attached to the old wood by its lower end, and it is from this point that it exerts its power of extension in length. This remarkable difference between the growth of bones and the solid parts of plants, does not take place in the horns of the stag, as nothing can bear a stronger resemblance to their growth than that of a branch of a tree; they extend from one extremity only, they are at first as tender as an herb and then harden like wood. The scurf which covers and grows with them is their bark, which the animals rub off when they are arrived at their full growth; until this is completed the ends remain soft, and likewise divide themselves into a number of branches. In a word there is aperfect resemblance in the development of both, and therefore the organic molecules, which constitute the living substance of the horns of the stag, still retain the image of the vegetable, because they are arranged in the same manner as in vegetables. Here we see that matter has an influence over form. The stag, which lives in the forest, and feeds only on the leaves of trees, receives from them so strong an impression that he produces a sort of tree, of whose origin it is impossible to mistake. This effect, though surprising, is not singular, but depends on that general cause which we more than once have already had occasion to point out.

The most constant and invariable thing in Nature is the image or model allotted to each particular species, both in animals and vegetables; what is most variable is the substance of which they are composed. Matter, in general, seems to receive all forms with indifference, and to be capable of all configurations; the organic and living particles of this matter pass from vegetables into animals, without suffering dissolution or alteration, and equally form the living substance of herbs, trees, flesh, or bones. It may seem from this first glance that matter can never predominate over form,and that no sort of nourishment taken by the animal, provided he can draw out the organic particles, and assimilate them to himself by nutrition, can occasion any change upon his form, and can have no effect but that of supporting, or adding to the growth of his body. Of this we have a proof in those animals which live solely upon herbage, who, though a substance widely different from their own bodies, draw from it every thing necessary to constitute flesh and blood, and will even exceed in bulk those who feed upon animal food. In taking a more particular view of Nature we find this is not always the case. Height, for example, which is one of the attributes of form, varies in every species according to the difference of climate; as do the quantity and quality of the flesh, two other attributes of form, according to the different kinds of food. This organic matter, therefore, which the animal assimilates to its body by nutrition, is not absolutely indifferent to the reception of this or that modification: it is not deprived of its original figure; it continues to act in its own form, and though this action be almost imperceptible, yet, in process of time, it necessarily produces very sensible effects. The stag, who inhabits the forests, and lives only upon wood, produces a species of trees, which is nothingmore than the superabundant part of his food. The beaver which inhabits the water, and feeds upon fish, has a tail covered with scales; and the flesh of the otter, as well as of most aquatic fowls, is of a fishy nature. It may therefore be presumed, that animals which live constantly upon one kind of food will, in time, imbibe a tincture of its aliment; and however strong the original impression of nature may be, a kind of transformation will take place by an assimilation contrary to the first. In this case the nourishment no longer assimilates entirely to the form of the animal, but the animal assimilates in part to the form of the nourishment, as is seen in the horns of the stag and the tail of the beaver.

The horns, then, are but an excrescence, a part foreign to the body of the stag, and only esteemed as an animal substance because it grows from him; it is in reality a vegetable production, since it retains all the marks of that vegetable from which it derives its origin, and resembles the branch of a tree in the manner it grows, expands, hardens, dries, and separates; for it falls off spontaneously, after having acquired its full degree of solidity, like a ripe fruit from the branch. The very name given to this production in the French language[E]is a proof that it has been considered as a species of wood, and not as a horn, a bone, a tusk, a tooth, &c. In addition to these arguments, we may add a fact recorded by Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Pliny, who all assert that ivy has been seen to grow round the horns of stags while they were in a tender state. If this be true and it would be easy to make the experiment, it would still more fully establish the analogy between the wood of the stag and that of trees. The horns and tusks of other animals are not only of a substance different from the branches of a stag, but also in their growth, texture, and form, both exterior and interior, there is nothing which bears any analogy to wood: these and the nails, claws, hair, feathers, scales, &c. grow, it is true, by a kind of vegetation, but a vegetation widely different from that of trees. The horns of oxen, goats, antelopes, &c. are hollow within, whereas those of the stag are entirely solid; the substance of the former is the same with that of nails, claws, scales, &c. but the horns of the stag resemble wood more than any other substance. All these hollow horns are covered on the inside by aperiosteum, andcontain in their cavities a bone which serves to support them; they never fall off but continue to increase during the life of the animal, and will assist in determining its age, by the number of annual rings. Instead of growing like those of the stag, from the upper extremity, they grow like nails, feathers, and hair from the lower extremity. Thus it is also with the tusks of the elephant, sea-cow, boar, and all other animals; they are hollow within, and grow only from the lower extremity. These horns or tusks have therefore no more resemblance than nails, hairs, or feathers, to the horns of the stag.

[E]The French word isbois, a forest, a wood, likewise used for the substance, or branch of a tree

All vegetation is reducible then to three kinds; the first is, when the growth proceeds from the superior extremity, as in herbs, plants, trees, and the antlers of stags; the second, when it is made from the inferior extremity, as in horns, claws, nails, hair, scales, tusks, teeth, feathers, and other exterior parts of animal bodies; the third when the growth advances from both extremities at the same time, as in bones, cartilages, muscles, tendons, and other internal parts of animals. Of all three the proximate cause is the superabundance of organic nourishment, and the only effect, the assimilation of that nourishment, to the mould whereinit has been received. Thus the animal grows more or less quickly in proportion to the quantity of such nourishment, and when the growth is nearly completed, it then seeks to employ itself in the propagation of new organized beings in the manner as we have before stated. The difference between animals, which, like the stag, have fixed seasons, and those which can engender at all times, proceeds likewise from the manner of their feeding. Man and domestic animals, which every day receive an equal quantity of sustenance, and frequently to an excess, may engender at all seasons. The stag, and most wild animals on the contrary, who suffer much from want in the winter, have no superabundance, nor are in a state to engender till they have recruited themselves during the summer; and it is then the rutting season commences, and during which he exhausts himself so much that he remains the whole winter in a state of langour. His flesh and blood are then so impoverished that worms breed under his skin, which still adds to his misery, and which do not perish till the spring, when he recovers new life from the active nourishment he is abundantly furnished with by the fresh production of the earth.

Thus does this animal pass his whole life in alternate plenty and want, vigour and inanition, health and sickness, without having his constitution much affected by the violence of those extremes; nor is the duration of his life inferior to those animals which are not subject to such vicissitudes. As he is five or six years in growing, so he lives seven times that number, or from 35 to 40 years. What has been reported of the prodigious longevity of the stag has no foundation, being only a popular prejudice, which took place in the days of Aristotle, and which he did not consider as probable, because, as he observes, neither the time of gestation nor of growth, indicated long life. Notwithstanding this authority, which ought to have abolished the prejudice, it was again renewed in the days of ignorance, and supported by the story of a stag which was taken by Charles VI. in the forest of Senlis, with a collar upon his neck, bearing the inscription “Cæsar hoc me donavit;” and the people rather choose to believe this stag had lived a thousand years, and had received his collar from a Roman Emperor, than that he came from Germany, where the Emperors yet assume the name of Cæsar.

The horns of the stag increase in bulk and height from the second year to the eighth, and from that time remain with equal beauty during all the vigor of life; but when he begins to decline with age they decline also. It rarely happens that our stags have more than 20 or 22 antlers, and even this number is by no means constant, but he will have a greater number one year than another, according to the nourishment and repose he has enjoyed; and upon the same circumstances the size and quality of the horns likewise depend. It is like the wood of the forest, large, tender, and light, in moist and fertile countries, and short, hard, and heavy in such as are dry arid barren. The size and shape of the animals also vary according to the districts they inhabit. Those which range in valleys, or gently-rising hills, abounding in grain, are much larger than those which frequent dry and rocky mountains; the latter are short and thick; they are not so swift as the former, but can run much longer; they are likewise more mischievous; their horns are short and black, like a tree stinted in its growth, whose bark is always of a darkish hue; whereas the horns of those which feed on plains are lofty, and of a clear red, like the wood and bark of trees which grow in a goodsoil. These little thick stags generally inhabit among the underwood, where they can the more easily conceal themselves from the pursuit of the dogs. Those of Corsica appear to be the smallest of these mountain stags, and are hardly more than half the size of those common among us, and are, as it were, the terrier among stags; his body is squat, his legs are short, and his hair is dark brown. I am convinced that the size and stature of stags depend upon the quality and quantity of their food, from having reared one, and supplied him very plentifully, who at the end of four years was taller, plumper, and in every respect better furnished than the oldest stags in my woods, though they are of a very large size.

The most common colour of the stag is yellow, though many of them are brown, and some red. White stags are more uncommon, and seem to be a race which have been domesticated, but in very early times, for both Aristotle and Pliny mention them, though as very rare. The colour of the horns, as well as the hair, seems to depend on the nature and age of the animal, and the impression of the air. The horns of the young stags are more white and untinged than those of theold ones. Those stags whose hair is a light yellow have often sallow coloured horns; those of a lively yellow their horns are red, and brown ones, especially those which have black hair on their necks, have black horns. It is true that the interior parts of the horns of all stags are almost equally white, but they differ greatly in point of solidity and texture. Some of them are even spongy and have large cavities. The difference of texture is sufficient to account for their difference in colour, without having recourse to the sap of trees as productive of that effect; especially since we daily see the whitest ivory change brown or yellow if exposed to the air, although its substance is more complete than that of the horns of the stag.

The stag seems to have good eyes, an exquisite smell, and excellent ears. When listening he raises his head, pricks up his ears, and then hears from a great distance; when going into or issuing from a coppice, or half-covered place, he stops to take a full view round him, and scents the wind by way of discovering whether any thing is near that is likely to give him disturbance. Though rather simple he has curiosity and cunning. If any one whistle or call to him from a distance, he stops short,gazes attentively, and with a kind of admiration; and if those who disturbed him have neither arms nor dogs, he passes along quietly and without altering his pace. With equal tranquility and delight he appears to listen to the shepherd’s pipe, and the hunters to embolden them sometimes make use of those instruments. In general he fears men much less than dogs, and entertains neither distrust nor artifice but in proportion as he is disturbed. He eats slow, selects his food, and when full he seeks out a place to lie down and ruminate at leisure; though he does not seem to perform the act of rumination with the same ease as the ox, and it is not without violence that he can make the food rise from his first stomach; this is occasioned by the length and direction of the passage through which the aliment has to pass. The ox has a straight, short neck, but that of the stag is long and arched; efforts, therefore, are necessary to raise the food, and which efforts are made by a kind of hiccough, the action of which is manifest as long as he continues to ruminate. As he advances in age his voice is more strong and tremulous: that of the hind is weaker and shorter, and she never exerts it from love but only from fear. The stag raises a frightful cry in rutting time, for he is so transportedthat nothing disquiets or terrifies him; he is therefore easily surprised, and being loaded with fat cannot long maintain the chace; but when reduced to an extremity he is dangerous, and will attack the dogs with a kind of fury. He seldom drinks in the winter and not at all in the spring, the dew with which the tender grass is surcharged being then sufficient; but in the heat of summer, he has recourse to brooks, marshes and fountains, and in rutting time he is so overheated that he searches every where for water, not only to appease his immoderate thirst, but to bathe himself and refresh his body. He swims much better at this than at any other time because of his fat, which is specifically lighter than an equal quantity of water. He has been seen to cross large rivers; it has even been asserted that, allured by the scent of the hinds in rutting time, stags will throw themselves into the sea, and pass from one island to another at the distance of several leagues. They leap still better than they swim, for when pursued they easily clear a fence or hedge of six feet high. Their aliment differs according to the seasons: In autumn, after the rutting season, they search out the buds of green shrubs, the flowers of the heath, brambles, &c. In the winter, during snow, they peel the barkoff the trees, and feed upon that and the moss, &c. and in mild weather they range for provender among the corn fields. In the spring they seek out the trembling poplar, willow, hazel, &c. In summer, when they have abundance, they seem to like no grain so well as rye, and no wood equal to the black-berry bearing alder.

The flesh of the fawn is very delicate, that of the hind and pricket not bad, but that of the full-grown stag has always a strong and disagreeable taste. The skin and the horns are the most useful parts of this animal; from the former is made a very pliable and durable leather. The horns are used by cutlers, and other mechanics, and a volatile salt, much used in medicine, is drawn from it by chemists.

SUPPLEMENT.

By a letter I received from M. Beccaria, a celebrated Professor at Pisa, dated October 28, 1767, it appears the pupil of the eye of the stag, as well as that of the cat, owl, &c. contracts in the light, and dilates in the dark; of this he was perfectly convinced by some experiments he made with a stag confined in adarkened apartment, but he found the effect was very different from that in the animals above mentioned, for their contraction and dilation is made vertically, while those of the stag are horizontally.

I have also received information of a fact from M. le Marquis d’Amazaga, that merits being noticed in the history of the stag. We have already observed that their horns begin to acquire the form and existence, which they retain for the remainder of the year, at the beginning of August, and after noticing this fact he proceeds in the relation, "that on the 17th of October the attendants of the Prince of Condé chaced a stag six years old, and it being the rutting season they were greatly surprised at the swiftness of his pace and the distance he led them, which was full six leagues from his harbour; and this surprise received no small addition when he was taken, by his horns appearing white and sprinkled with blood, as they are at the season when they rub them against the trees; and it was evident, on his being opened, from the situation of his interior parts, that he had never experienced the effects of the rut, and as he had not been in a condition for rutting he was as loaded with fat as though it had been the month of June, July,or August. Besides this he had another singularity; his right foot wanted the middle bone, and which in the left was at least half an inch long, large, and pointed. As the stag, if he be castrated when he has no horns, never acquires any after, or never loses them if performed when his horns are in perfection, it is but reasonable to suppose that they were retarded, in the present instance, from the imbecility of his organs, but which however were sufficient to effect the fall and renewal of his horns, as it was evident when he was killed that he had had horns annually from the second to the sixth year." These observations strongly prove the justness of our former remarks upon the renovation of the horns of the stag.

In remarking on the Norwegian stags, Pontoppidan says, “they are only in the dioceses of Bergen and Drontheim, and that they have been seen to swim in numbers across the straits, from the continent to the adjacent islands, resting their heads upon each other’s cruppers, and when those who lead are fatigued they retire behind, and the most vigorous take their places.”

Some attempts have been made to render our stags domestic, by treating them with the same gentleness as the Laplanders do theirrein-deer; upon which subject M. le Vicomte de Querhoënt has informed me of the following fact: “The Portuguese first brought stags to the Isle of France, and although they took their origin from those of Europe, they were small and their colour grey; there were great numbers of them upon the island when the French took possession of it; they destroyed many of them, but a great proportion secured themselves in the most retired places; these by degrees have become quite domestic, and some of the inhabitants keep them in large flocks.”

There is a small kind of stag at l’Ecole Vétérinaire, which I have seen, and which is said to have come from the Cape of Good Hope. It was spotted with white, somewhat like the axis, and was called the hog stag, merely, as it should seem, because its legs were shorter, and it was not so agile as the common kind. The length of this from the muzzle to the extremity of the body, was only three feet four inches; its legs were short, and its feet and hoofs small; it was yellow with white spots, black eyes, and black hair on the upper eyelid; the nostrils were also black, as were the corners of the mouth; the head was nearly of the same colour as the belly, and it had large ears, white on the in and yellow on theoutside. Its horns were above eleven inches long and ten lines thick. Its back was dark brown, its tail was yellow above and white beneath, and its legs were of a brownish black. From all which it appears this animal approaches nearer to the species of the stag than to the fallow-deer.

Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.

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