follow in their order of maturity, prickets not being clear of the velvet until September.
The horns are scraped on almost any hard substance that comes handy,
although Stags seldom make use of trees over a certain size; they prefer
one that bends and gives a bit as they polish inside and out. I have several
times seen Stags cleaning on hard peat hags on the open moor, and in parks
even iron railings or boards protecting trees are resorted to. At first the
horns are quite white, but change to brown in a few days when the superficial
mucus dries. By rolling in the ‘ soiling’ pools Stags make their horns much
darker. These pools are found in all Scotch forests and English parks, and the
Stags resort to them much both before and during the rutting season, as well as at
the coat-changing times. In Ross-shire Stags are sometimes quite clean so early
as the first week in August, but most Highland Stags do not lose the velvet
before August 25.1 In Scotland September 28 is generally called ‘ the day of
the roaring,’ although the actual day at which Stags commence to ‘ bell' or
‘ roar’ depends much upon the season.2
Under sexual excitement stags eat little8 or nothing and lose weight rapidly,
so that when winter spreads its white covering over the mountains they are often
in such a wretched state that they are hardly able to crawl about, and are frequently
quite tame. Consequently the second week in October is_the most interesting
time to go Deer-stalking, although it is easy to shoot the old Stags, for they are
then least capable of taking alarm.
In the spring, shortly before calving, hinds sometimes indulge in a game of
romps. The whole herd will dart off at full gallop, and chase one another for an
hour or more in and out of concentric circles. While it is somewhat uncommon
to see Red Deer playing in this manner, Fallow Deer frequently do so. That
even old Red Stags will sometimes so far forget their age and dignity as to
play at being children again, I observed in Warnham Park one cold December
day in 1901. Six big Stags started off in pairs and chased each other in play
for over an hour. They ran round and round the park, and then rushed after
one another at full speed as if to charge, stopping suddenly and springing into
the air, like boys dodging one another at prisoners’ base.
1 Mr. Sanders, Master o f the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, tells me that the Exmoor deer ‘ rub’ at a similar date.
Collyns, after an experience of forty-six years, states (p. 35) he has seen but two stags killed before September 10
whose horns were perfectly free from velvet In Scotland, however, I have seen many stags quite ‘ clean ’ even so early as
August 10.
* Sir S. Maryon Wilson reports in the Field, October 8, 1904, the case of a stag which roared throughout the summer in
Kinveachy Forest, Boat of Garten, in 1904.
* During the first days of roaring they suck up a mixture of peat and water every day.
In summer and early autumn the best Stags go to the highest ground in
fine weather; from the point of view of high-class stalking and the fine condition
of the animals, this is the best time and place to pursue them. As winter comes
on Stags and hinds mix indiscriminately, and will come to the forest glens for
shelter and food, and approach close to human dwellings.
Hinds never wander far from the place where they have been born, but in
autumn, when searching for hinds, Stags will make a ‘ point ’ and travel fifty and
sixty miles without stopping, returning again to their old resorts the following spring.
It is hardly necessary to say that their staple food is grass, but they also
eat the leaves and young shoots of many deciduous trees, such as lime, beech,
birch, alder, and hazel. Turnips are a favourite food. Hinds eat these down
close, but Stags are more destructive in a field. When a Stag bites a turnip he
jerks it out of the ground and does not touch it again, yet curiously enough he
will pick up every grain of Indian corn that is scattered among the grass.
Carrots and cabbages are equally attractive; potatoes are dug out with the fore
feet and eaten with relish, while they like nothing better than a wheatfield both
to feed on in spring and in autumn to lie in. Naturally the damage done to
crops near their strongholds is great, and their presence in the neighbourhood
can only be countenanced through the goodwill of the farmers. In the west of
England the monetary compensation is not the real solatium to the men who
make their living by the soil. It is the sport of Stag-hunting which induces the
farmers to endure and forgive much.
Deer feed very closely, and display a greater discrimination than sheep or
cattle, but they do not improve pasture; their presence has a tendency to ‘ sour’
the grass. Their appetite for bones, horns, and seaweed is well known. Colonel
Percy, who has long rented the forest of South Harris, actually shot a Stag that
was in the act of chewing the horn on another Stag’s head.1 In parks Deer are
very fond of acorns and chestnuts ; I have sometimes seen an old Stag rearing up
on his hind legs and striking the branches of an oak tree with his horns to make
the acorns fall. They also treat apple trees in a similar manner to obtain the fruit.
In winter Deer keep moving about nearly the whole day in search of food,
but in summer they feed and lie down alternately according to the abundance of
1 Mr. A. Williamson in a contribution to Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley’s Fauna o f the Outer Hebrides, says:
«1 have often, when lying watching a herd, seen the hinds chewing the horns of a Stag lying on the ground, and that this
was a common practice was shown by the marks of their teeth upon the horns of almost every Stag I killed in the season ’
(p. 30). This excessive fondness for horns on the part of the Island Red Deer of Lews and Harris is accounted for by
the almost total absence of bone-producing elements in the geology of these islands.