Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/65

Rh at once, and thus gain the full advantage of the summer grazing. It is in spring that those cold east winds prevail, often accompanied by hot sun in the day time, which parch the ground and give it a white, desert-like appearance. A well-wintered stag must be better able to stand this particularly trying period of the year than one which has only just been able to pull through the cold north-westerly blasts of wind bringing sleet, snow, or rain, which may not improbably have formed with little interruption the weather of the past four months."

Stag-hunting, by the Viscount Ebrington, transports us to Devon and Somerset, where it "is the only survival in England of a sport which was followed in earlier days in most countries in Europe, and which still has many devotees on the Continent." The total head of deer in this locality is estimated by the author at about four hundred, while the average number killed for the last ten seasons is sixty. Although sport is there again the principal theme, there are scattered notes of the greatest interest to the naturalist. Thus:—"Something is to be learned also from the feeding of the deer. If the bark of a tree or the ivy growing on it is gnawed up and down, it is the work of a hind; but if the bites are across the trunk they are a stag's." Again:—"A stag crosses his legs right and left in walking, while with a hind the prints of the hind foot will be in a direct line" with those of the fore foot unless she is heavy in calf; and it is curious, seeing how careful Nature is to protect animals in that condition, that they should in anything resemble the male at that period. The extra weight on the legs is no doubt the reason, and at calving time the stags are defenceless too, having shed their horns." Another query of interest is, "What becomes of the old deer? They are not all killed by the hounds; a few may meet with foul play, but some must die a natural death. Yet it is hardly ever that their bodies are found."

The fourth section of the volume is devoted to "The Cookery of Venison," a subject of importance to every right-thinking naturalist and sportsman, but one outside discussion in these pages.