[C] The stag in Greek [Greek: elaphos]; in Latin _cervus_, in Italian
_cervo_; in Spanish _ciervo_; in Portuguese _veado_; in German
_hirsch_; in Danish _hiort_; in Swedish _kronhjort_; in Dutch _hert_;
in Polish _jelenie_.
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 noblest among 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 a crowd
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 has _harboured_,
be a _brock_, 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 stag is better formed than that of the hind; her _leg_[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 the _leg_ is 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
and retrace 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 the scent 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 of May. 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._
[Illustration: FIG. 54. _Stag._]
[Illustration: 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 which are 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 at that 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, or
prickets. 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 particularly the
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 appears that 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 foetus 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 of his 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 the _lichen
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; and its 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 a perfect 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 nothing more 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 a _periosteum_, and contain 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 is _bois_, 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 wherein it 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 good soil. 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 the old 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
transported that 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 bark
off 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.