When two stags contend for the same female, however timorous they may appear at other times, they then seem agitated with an uncommon degree of ardour; they paw up the earth, and menace their opponent with their horns, bellowing with all their force, and striking in a desperate manner against each other, seeming determined upon death or victory. This combat continues till one of them is defeated or flies, and it oftentimes happens that the victor is obliged to fight several of these battles before he becomes the undisturbed master of the field. The old ones are generally the conquerors upon these occasions, as they have more strength and greater courage, and they are preferred by the hind to the younger, the latter being more feeble and less ardent.
In this manner the stag continues to range from one to the other for three weeks, the time the rut continues, during which he scarcely eats, sleeps, or rests, but continues to pursue, to combat, and enjoy. At the end of this period of madness, for such in this animal it seems to be, the creature that was before fat, sleek, and glossy, becomes lean, feeble, and timid. He then retires from the herd to seek replenishment and repose.
The stag or red deer is common in Europe, Barbary, the north of Asia, and North America; it abounds in the southern parts of Siberia, where it grows to an immense size, but is now extirpated in Russia. It lives in herds, and there is generally one male which is supreme in each herd. The colour of the stag is generally a reddish brown, with some black and white about the face, and a black line down the hinder part of the neck between the shoulders, and the belly white. Sometimes their colour is a pale yellow brown, sometimes a blackish brown, and lastly, instances occasionally occur of stags being found entirely white.
The stag possesses a fine eye, an acute smell, and excellent ear, like that of the cat and the owl; the eye of the stag contracts in the light, and dilates in the dark, but with this difference, that the contraction and dilatation are horizontal, while in the first mentioned animals they are vertical.
When deer are thirsty, they plunge their noses, like some horses, very deep under water while in the act of drinking, and continue them in that situation for a considerable time.
The number of teeth of the various species of deer and the antelope tribe, is generally thirty-two, namely, eight cutting teeth in the lower jaw, six molar teeth on each side of these, and six molar teeth on each side in the upper jaw; but there are frequent exceptions to this rule.
The cry of the hind or female is not so loud as that of the male, and is never excited but by apprehension for herself or her young. It need scarcely be mentioned that she has no horns, or that she is more feeble or unfit for hunting than the male. When once she has conceived she separates from the males, and then they both herd apart. The time of gestation continues eight months and a few days, and they seldom produce more than one at a birth. Their usual season for bringing forth is about the month of May, or the beginning of June. They take the greatest care to secrete their young in the most obscure thickets, nor is the caution without reason, as many creatures are their formidable enemies. The eagle, the falcon, the wolf, the dog, and all the rapacious family of the cat kind, are continually seeking to discover her retreat. But what is more unnatural still, the stag himself is a professed enemy, and she is obliged to use all her arts to conceal her young from him, as from the most dangerous of her pursuers. At this season, therefore, the courage of the male seems transferred to the female; she defends her young against her less formidable opponents by force, and, when pursued by the hunter, she offers herself to mislead him from the principal object of his concern. She flies before the hounds for half the day, and then returns to her offspring, whose life she has thus preserved at the hazard of her own.
Those persons who are fond of the pastime of hunting have their peculiar terms for the different objects of their pursuit. Thus the stag is called, the first year, a calf or hind calf, the second a knobber, the third a brock, the fourth a staggard, the fifth a stag, the sixth a hart. The female is called, the first year, a calf, the second a hearse, the third a hind.
In Britain the stag is become less common than formerly, its excessive viciousness during the rutting season inducing most people to dispense with this species, and rear the fallow deer, which is of a more placid nature, in its stead. Some attempts have, indeed, been made to render stags domestic, by treating them with the same gentleness as the Laplanders do their rein-deer; and it appears, in the Isle of France, where the Portuguese had introduced the European breed, they had so far succeeded, by degrees, as to render them quite domestic, many of the inhabitants keeping large flocks of them; but when the French took possession of that island, they destroyed most of these domesticated stags. Valmont de Bromere asserts that he saw in Germany, a set, or attelage, consisting of six stags, that were perfectly obedient to the curb and to the whip; and in the magnificent stables of Chantilly, in the year 1770, there were two stags that were occasionally harnessed to a small chariot, in which they drew two persons.
Stags are still found wild in the Highlands of Scotland, in herds of four or five hundred together, ranging at full liberty over the vast hills of the north, and some of them grow to a great size: Pennant says, upon the authority of Mr. Farquharson, that one of these wild stags weighed three hundred and fourteen pounds, exclusive of the entrails, head, and skin. Formerly the great Highland chieftains used to hunt with all the magnificence of eastern monarchs, assembling four or five thousand of their clan, who drove the deer into the toils, or to the station their lairds had placed themselves in. But as the chace was frequently used as a pretence for collecting their vassals for rebellious purposes, an act was passed prohibiting any assembly of this kind.