All the species of Deer belong to what naturalists know as the even-toed ungulates (animals with divided hoofs). As distinguished from the Horse, for example, which walks on a single hoof in the middle line of the foot, the Deer are supported on two smaller symmetrical hoofs and the axis of the foot passes between them. If you come across the footprints of the Red Deer—"slot" the hunter calls them—in soft ground you will find that fact well-marked. Let me say parenthetically that when observing wild animals, footprints or "spoor" should be eagerly watched for. In the deeper slot of the Deer there may also be slight impressions of two other toes, one on each side behind and above the hoofs.
If you should come across a no longer needed skull of the Deer, take the opportunity for examining its dental arrangements. You are, of course, more likely to meet with it in a museum than in your rambles. You will find the teeth and their disposition do not differ materially from what are found in the jaws of the ox and the sheep; for like those the Deer is a ruminant, living on vegetable food and having a four-chambered stomach. There are no teeth in the forepart of the upper jaw, the three premolars and three molars of each side being placed well back in the cheek. On each side of the lower jaw we find right in front three incisors or cutting teeth, which bite against hardened gum in the upper jaw. The Stag alone has a single canine tooth a little behind these, but the Hind is denied this possession. Three premolars and three molars correspond with, and bite against, those of the upper jaw. Dental formula: i 0/3, c 0/1, p 3/3, m 3/3 = 32.
The food of the Deer is herbage and the young shoots of trees and shrubs. It is this fact that led to their nominal extermination in the New Forest and other places. By nature they are woodland animals—although their greater prevalence to-day in the Highlands might give us a different impression—and in the winter especially do great damage to the plantations of young trees. Agricultural lands in their vicinity also suffer greatly, a whole field of turnips being ruined in a night by a visit from a herd of Deer. They also destroy wheat, potatoes, and cabbages; and in the woods consume many toadstools, acorns, and chestnuts.
In spring and summer whilst his horns are growing the Stag lives apart from his kind, but in the early autumn when these are well-developed and hard, we may in suitable localities hear his "belling" call to the Hinds, or in defiance to some rival.
"The wild buck bells from ferny brake,"
as Sir Walter Scott puts it. There is a good deal of furious fighting when two jealous Stags of similar age and strength meet in the vicinity of the hinds. He is then in the prime of condition, his neck and shoulders clad in a thick mantle of long brown hair, and his head adorned with the noble pair of antlers that reveals his age. Those that decorated and armed him last autumn and winter were shed bodily about March, and a new growth started soon after from the burred frontal knobs that were left. It is important to notice the difference between these solid though temporary growths and the mere shells that permanently decorate the heads of oxen, sheep, and goats. In the Deer they are what biologists term secondary sexual characters; they are possessed by the males only, and cast in their entirety at the end of each breeding season with its frequent contests between the Stags. The history of these antlers is strangely like that of a tall perennial herb whose stems and branches die down to the rootstock each winter—that is, after the plant's breeding season—and start into more vigorous growth each spring. The "rootstock" of the Stag's horns makes its appearance at an early age, and its annual growth is more numerously branched each succeeding year. The growth of the Stag's horns is said to keep pace with the growth of the bracken among which he rests.
When the male Deer-calf is a few months old he becomes distinct from the female by the appearance of two knobs ("bossets") on the front of the head; he is then a knobber. Next year these become longer and pointed ("dags") and he becomes known as a brocket. The third year a branch appears forward—the brow antler—and he becomes a spayad. The fourth year a second forward antler—the bez tine or bay—is produced at about a third from the summit of the now long horn; and he is known as a staggard. The tray (très) or royal antler appears near the summit in the fifth year, and this entitles the young Deer to the title of Stag: he has come of age. From the sixth year, when the crown of antlers begins to form at the summit by the production of tines in several directions at the same height, he becomes a Hart or Stag of Ten; and in former days he could advance beyond that dignity by escaping with his life after being hunted by the King, thereby earning the rank of a Stag Royal. If he lives long enough he may wear a pair of antlers each having as many as forty-eight points. He is considered, by the way, to live for forty years.
The antler has a core of solid bone covered by a continuation of the soft skin of the head, which bears a close pile of short hair and is known as the velvet. When the core has attained to its proper solidity and hardness, the growth of the rough burr at its base, pressing on the blood vessels and stopping their further supply to the velvet above, causes the death of the latter; and the Deer by rubbing the new structure against tree trunks and branches, tears off the velvet in strips, and is then able to do battle with his peers. The ensuing period of sexual unrest having been passed through safely, the whole structure down to the burrs is parted with, and a finer set of antlers begun. The whole process of antler growth occupies about ten weeks, and during this period the Stag is always in poor condition, and seeks solitude. What becomes of the dropped antlers is somewhat of a mystery, as few of them are found, and these usually odd ones.
If one were seeking to judge the habits of the Red Deer from a finely stuffed specimen in, say, the Natural History Museum, standing erect with fully developed antlers, one would feel justified in saying, as many have said—"This is a creature of the open mountain-side and the moorland, where there are no trees whose branches could entangle these branching horns. No adornment could be better fitted for keeping the noble beast out of the woods." Yet the Deer can actually run through dense woods with ease, and we know from its habitats in other countries where it is still plentiful, that it is a true woodland animal. The explanation is evident if, during a Stag hunt, we see the hunted seek refuge in a wood. The Stag throws his head back so that his antlers lie along each side and protect his body from many a bruise that might otherwise be inflicted by the branches as he rushes through the undergrowth. The antlers may be used with deadly effect in self-defence, and many a hound is killed by a Stag at bay. Their function appears to be mainly protective against carnivorous beasts; they are seldom if ever effective against those of their own kind.
The mating of the Red Deer, as we have indicated, takes place in the autumn; and in the spring the Hinds separate, each retiring to a lonely spot among the bracken where her single calf (rarely two) is born about the end of May. The little deer is already covered with fur, and its back and sides are dappled with white after the manner of the Fallow Deer, though unlike the livery of that species the spotting of the Red Deer is not retained beyond calfhood. The calf is born with some intelligence also. Mr. St. John tells how, one day in the Highlands, he "was watching a Red Deer hind with my glass, whose proceedings I did not understand, till I saw that she was licking a new-born calf. I walked up to the place, and as soon as the old deer saw me she gave her young one a slight tap with her hoof. The little creature immediately laid itself down; and when I came up I found it lying with its head flat on the ground, its ears closely laid back, and with all the attempts at concealment that one sees in animals which have passed an apprenticeship to danger of some years, whereas it had evidently not known the world for more than an hour, being unable to run or escape. I lifted up the little creature, being half inclined to carry it home in order to rear it. The mother stood at the distance of two hundred yards, stamping with her foot, exactly as a sheep would have done in a similar situation. I, however, remembering the distance I had to carry it, and fearing that it might get hurt on the way, laid it down again, and went on my way, to the great delight of its mother, who almost immediately trotted up, and examined her progeny all over, appearing, like most other wild animals, to be confident that her young and helpless offspring would be a safeguard to herself against the attacks of her otherwise worst enemy."