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 a darkened 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 their rein-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 the outside. 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._
[Illustration: FIG. 56. _Female Fallow Deer._]
[Illustration: FIG. 57. _Fallow Deer._]
_Published Oct: 29, 1791 by I.S. Barr._