[F] In Greek πρὁξ; in Latin dama; in French le daim; in Italian daino; in Spanish daino; in German damhirsch; in Swedish dof, dovhjort; in Polish lanii.
No two animals can make a more near approach to each other than the stag and the fallow-deer, and yet no two animals keep more distinct, or avoid each other with more fixed animosity; they never herd or intermix together, and consequently never give rise to an intermediate race. It is even rare, unless they have been transported thither, to find fallow-deer in a country where stags are numerous. They seem to be of a nature less robust and less rustic than the stag; are less common in the forests, but are kept in parks, where it may be said they are half domestic. They abound more in England than in any other country in Europe; and there the people are extremely partial to their venison. The dogs also prefer the flesh of this deer to that of all other animals; and having once tasted it, they will quit the chase of the stag or roe, when they come across the track of a fallow-deer. There are some of them in the neighbourhood of Paris, in some provinces of France, Spain, and Germany, as also in America, where probably they have been carried from Europe. It seems to be an animal formed for a temperate climate, for there are not any in Russia, and are rarely met with in Sweden, or any other northern country. Stags are much more generally diffused. They are found throughout Europe, even in Norway, and over all the north, Lapland, perhaps, excepted; in Asia, especially in Tartary, they are numerous, as well as in the northern provinces of China. They are likewise found in America; for those of Canada differ only from ours in the height of their horns, and in the direction of their antlers, which is sometimes not straight forward, as in the heads of the common stags, but turned backward by a very evident inflection; but this form of the horns is not confined to the Canadian stag, as it is nearly the same in the Corsican stags; and some that came from Russia and Germany, have a kind of crown at the summit of their antlers, but these are only varieties, and not different species. There are large and small stags in America as well as in Europe, and yet, however diffused their species may be, they seem to be confined to cold and temperate climates. The stags of Mexico, and other parts of South America; those of Cayenne; those called stags of the Ganges, which are spoken of by M. Perault, under the name of the Sardinian hinds; those to which travellers have given the appellation of Cape stags; those of Guinea, and other warm countries, belong not to the common species, as will appear from the particular history we shall give of each of those animals.
As the fallow-deer is less savage, more delicate, and indeed more domestic than the stag, he is also subject to a greater number of varieties. Besides the common and white fallow-deer, we know of several other kinds, as those of Spain, which are almost as large as stags, but whose necks are more slender, their colour darker, their tails black underneath, and longer than those of the common deer; those of Virginia, which are almost as large as those of Spain, and are remarkable for the size of their genital organs. There are others with compressed foreheads, whose ears and tails are longer than those of the common fallow-deer, and who have the hoofs of their hind legs marked with a white spot; others are spotted or streaked with white, black, or yellow, and there are others entirely black, all of which have their horns more flat, broad, and are better furnished with antlers than those of the stag, they likewise incline more inwardly, and are more palmated at the points. Of the common fallow-deer the tail is longer than that of the stag, and its hair is lighter. The horns of the buck, like those of the stag, are shed every year, and are nearly the same time in being renewed; but as this change happens later, so is their rutting season, by from fifteen days to three weeks later than that of the stag. They are neither so furious at this time, nor exhaust themselves so much by the violence of their ardour: they never quit their own pastures in search of the females, though they will dispute and fight furiously for the possession of them. It often happens, that when there is a great number in one park they will divide into two parties and engage each other with much resolution: these contests generally occur from a wish they both have of grazing upon some particular spot. Each of these parties has its own chief, namely, the oldest and strongest in the herd. These lead on to the engagement, and the rest follow under their direction. Their combats are singular, from the conduct by which their efforts seem to be regulated; they attack with order, and support the assault with courage; mutually assist each other, retire, rally, and never yield the victory upon a single defeat; for the battle is daily renewed till the weakest party are quite defeated, from which time they are obliged to retire to some secluded part of the park, and be contented with the worst pasturage. They love elevated and hilly countries. When hunted they do not fly far before the hounds, like the stag, but study entirely how to escape from the dogs by stratagem; when pressed and heated they will plunge into the water, though it is very rare that they will take to a great river. In the chace, therefore, between the fallow-deer and the stag, there is no essential difference; their instincts and artifices are the same, though more put into practice by the former; which, together with the lightness of his step, render it more difficult for the dogs to avoid being deceived.
The fallow-deer is easily tamed and feeds upon many things which the stag refuses; he also preserves his venison better; nor does it appear that the rutting, followed by a long and severe winter, exhausts him, but he continues nearly in the same state throughout the year. He browzes closer than the stag, for which reason he is more prejudicial to young trees, and often strips them too close for recovery. The young deer eat faster and with more avidity than the old. At the second year they seek the female, and, like the stag, are fond of variety. The doe goes with young eight months and some days; she commonly produces one fawn, sometimes two, but very rarely three. They are capable of engendering at the age of two years to that of fifteen or sixteen; and in fine, they resemble the stag in all his natural habits, and the greatest difference between them is the duration of their lives. From the testimony of hunters it has been remarked that stags live to the age of 35 or 40 years, and from the same authority we understand that the fallow-deer does not live more than 20. As they are smaller than the stag, it is probable that their growth is soon completed. In all animals the duration of life is proportioned to that of the growth, and not to that of gestation, for here the gestation is the same; and in other species, as the ox, though the time of gestation be long, that of the duration of life is very short; whence it follows that we ought not to calculate the duration of life by the time of gestation, but by that which Nature has required for perfecting the growth, reckoning from the birth to the almost entire expansion of the body.
THE ROE-BUCK.[G]
[G] In French chevreuil; in Greek δορχἁς; in Latin capreolus, capriolus; in Italian capriolo; in Spanish zorlito; in Portuguese cobra montes; in German rehe; in Swedish radiur; in Danish raa diur.
The stag, as being the noblest inhabitant of the wood, occupies the most secret shades of the forest, and the elevated parts of mountains, where the spreading branches form a lofty covert; while the roe-deer, as if an inferior species, contents himself with a more lowly residence, and is seldom found but among the thick foliage of young trees. But if he is less noble, strong, and elevated in stature than the stag, he has more grace, vivacity, and courage; and when the fawns are attacked, he will defend them even against the stag himself. He is more gay and active, his shape is more agreeable and elegant; his eyes are more brilliant and animated; his limbs are more supple; his movements quicker, and with equal vigour and agility he seems to bound without effort. His hair is always clean, smooth, and glossy; he never rolls in the mud like the stag; he frequents the dryest and most elevated places, where the air is the most pure; he has also more cunning and finesse; he is more difficult to chace, and derives a greater number of resources from his instinct. Though he has the disadvantage of leaving a stronger scent behind him than the stag, which excites in the dogs a greater degree of ardour, he knows better how to avoid their pursuit by a rapid flight and repeated doublings; for he does not, like the stag, delay the application of art till his strength begins to fail him; but even in the first instance, when he finds his efforts of speed are not likely to save him, he immediately begins to retrace his former steps, and continues going backwards and forwards till, by his various windings, he has confounded the scent and joined the last emanations to those of his former course; having done which, by a great bound he withdraws to one side, lies flat upon his belly, and suffers the whole pack to pass close by him without attempting to move.
The roe-buck differs also from the stag in his natural appetites, inclinations, and whole habits of living. Instead of herding together, they live in separate families; the sire, dam, and young, form a little community, and never admit a stranger into it. All other animals of the deer kind are inconstant in their amours, but the roe-deer never forsake each other. As the females generally produce two fawns, one of each sex, they are brought up together, and acquire an attachment so strong, that they never separate, unless by some misfortune. This attachment is something more than love, for though they are always together, they do not feel the ardour of the rut more than fifteen days in the year, that is, from the end of October to about the middle of November. They are not at that time like the stag, overloaded with fat; they have no strong smell, no fury, nothing, in short, which alters their state; the only observable difference is, that they drive away their fawns; the buck forcing them off to make room, as it were, for a succeeding progeny. When the rutting season is over, however, the fawns return to their dams, and remain with them some time, after which they quit them entirely to form separate families of their own.
The female goes with young five months and a half, and brings forth about the end of April or beginning of May. The hinds, as already observed, go more than eight, which is alone sufficient to prove their difference of species, that they can never intermix, nor produce an intermediate race. In this respect, as well as in figure and make, they approach the species of the goat, as much as they recede from that of the stag; for the goat goes with young nearly the same time, and perhaps the roe-deer ought to be regarded as a wild goat, which, by feeding solely on trees, carries branches on his brows instead of horns. When about to bring forth, the female separates from the male, and conceals herself in the deepest recesses of the woods, to avoid the wolf, who is her most dangerous enemy. At the expiration of ten or twelve days, the fawns attain sufficient strength to follow her. When threatened with any danger, she hides them in some deep thicket, and by way of preserving them presents herself to be chaced. But all her care is not sufficient to secure them from being frequently carried off by dogs and wolves. This is indeed their most critical time, when this species, which is not very numerous, suffers the greatest destruction, as I have found by experience. I often reside in a part of the country (Montbard in Burgundy) famous for roe-bucks, and where not a spring passes without a great number being brought me, some taken alive by men, and others killed by dogs; insomuch that, without counting those killed by wolves, I am convinced more are destroyed in the month of May than in all the rest of the year; and I have observed, for more than twenty-five years, that as if there subsisted a perfect equilibrium between the causes of destruction and renovation, their number is nearly the same in the same districts. It is not difficult to count them, as they are no where very numerous, and keep together in separate families, and distinct from that of any other. In a coppice, for example, of 100 acres in circumference, there will be found one family, or from three to five individuals, for the females will sometimes have but one fawn, and at others three, but either case seldom happens; in another district more extensive, there will be seven or eight, that is two families; and I have remarked that in each district their numbers have been uniform, excepting in those years when the winters have been remarkably severe; in that case the whole family is destroyed, but by the next year it is succeeded by another; and those districts to which they give the preference are always stocked with nearly the same quantity of them. Notwithstanding this, it is asserted, that this species, upon the whole, is diminishing in number; and, indeed, it is true, that there are provinces in France where not one of them is to be found; that though common in Scotland there are none in England; very few in Italy, and they are more scarce in Sweden than formerly, &c. But these effects might arise from the diminution of forests, or from the excessive rigour of some winters, like that of 1709, by which they were almost all destroyed in Burgundy, and a number of years elapsed before they were renewed. Besides they are not equally fond of every country, and even in the same country they are partial to particular spots. They love hilly grounds, and never remain in the deep recesses of extensive forests, but prefer the skirts of those woods which are surrounded with cultivated fields, and open coppices, where the brambles, buck-thorn, &c., grow in plenty.