Part 3

After the stags have cast their horns they separate, the young ones only keeping together. They remain no longer in deep covert, but seek the beautiful part of the country, and continue among the coppices during the summer, and until their antlers are renewed. In this season they carry their heads low for fear of rubbing their horns against the branches, for they are very tender until they arrive at perfection. The horns of the eldest stags are not more than half renewed by the middle of May, nor acquire their full growth and hardness before the end of July; the younger stags are later both in shedding and having them renewed; but when completely lengthened and hardened, they rub them against the trees to clear them from a scurf with which they are covered; and as they continue this practice for several days successively, it has been said their horns receive a tint from the juices of the trees against which they are rubbed; that they derive a red cast from the beech and birch, a brown one from the oak, and a black one from the elm, or trembling poplars. It is also asserted that the horns of the young stags, which are smoother and unpearled, are not so much tinged as those of the old ones, which are rougher, and covered with these pearlings, which retain the sap of the tree. But I cannot be persuaded that this is the true cause, for I have had tame stags shut up in inclosures, where there was not a single tree, whose horns were, nevertheless, coloured in the same manner as those of other stags.

_Engraved for Barr's Buffon._

Soon after the stag (_fig. 54._) has polished his horns he begins to feel an inclination for the females, and in which respect the oldest are most forward. By the end of August, or beginning of September, they leave the coppice, return to the forest, and begin to search out for favourite hinds; (_fig. 55._) they cry with a loud voice, their necks and throats swell, they grow restless, and traverse the fallow grounds and plains in open day, and they dart their horns against the trees and hedges; in a word they seem transported with fury, and range from place to place till they have found their females, whom they then have to pursue and overcome, as the hind flies from him, and never becomes subservient to his passion until she is subdued by fatigue: those hinds which are most advanced in years are first in season. If two stags approach the same hind a combat must precede the enjoyment; if their strength is nearly equal, they threaten, plough up the earth with their paws, make a terrible noise, and dart upon each other with the utmost fury, carry on their battles to such extremities that they often inflict mortal wounds with their horns; nor is the combat ever concluded but by the defeat or flight of one of them. The conqueror loses not an instant to enjoy the fruits of his victory, unless another male happens to appear, when he is again obliged to quit his mate, and put him to flight as he had done the other. The oldest stags are sure to gain the battle, because they are more fierce and stronger than the young ones, who are obliged to wait patiently until their seniors are satisfied and quit the hind; though sometimes indeed, they take the advantage while the two old ones are fighting, and then make a precipitate retreat. The hinds also prefer the old stags, not merely because they are the most valiant, but because they are more ardent. They are also the most inconstant, and commonly have several females at the same time; and when they happen to have but one, they remain attached to her but a very few days, when they go in search of a second, with whom they remain a still shorter time, and then wander from female to female until they are quite exhausted. This amorous fury, however, lasts not above three weeks, during which time they eat but little, and are strangers to all repose; night and day are they on foot, ranging about, fighting with the males, or enjoying the females, and of course, when the rutting season is over, they are so wasted, meagre, and fatigued, that they require a length of time to recover their strength. They then retire to the borders of the forests and graze on the best cultivated lands, where they find food in abundance, and where they continue until their strength is restored.

The rutting time among the old stags commences about the first and concludes about the 20th of September; with those in the sixth or seventh year it begins in the middle of September, and ends the beginning of October; with the young stags it begins about the 20th of September and lasts to the 15th of October, by the end of which month the rutting is all over, except among the prickets, who, as well as the young hinds, are the latest in coming in season; thus by the beginning of November the rutting time is entirely finished; and at that time the stags, being in their weakest state, are most easily hunted down. In those seasons when acorns are plentiful they recover in a very short time, and a second rut will take place towards the end of October, but this is always of a much shorter duration than the first. In warmer climates, as the seasons are more forward, so is the rutting time. Aristotle has told us that in Greece it commences at the beginning of August, and concludes towards the end of September. The hinds carry their young eight months and a few days, and seldom produce more than one fawn; they bring forth in May or the beginning of June; they take the greatest care to conceal their fawns, and will even present themselves to be chased, in order to draw off the dogs, and afterwards return to take care of their young. All hinds are not prolific, and some of them are even barren: these kinds are more gross and fat than the others, and are sooner in heat. It is also said that some hinds have horns like the stags, and this is not void of probability. The fawns are not so called after the sixth month, then the knobs begin to appear, and they take the name of knobbers, which they bear until their horns lengthen into spears, and then they are called brocks, or prickets. Though they grow very fast, they do not quit their mothers all the first summer. In winter they all resort together, and their herds are more numerous as the season is more severe; in the spring they divide; the hinds retiring to bring forth, and it is only the prickets and young stags which then keep together. In general stags are inclined to associate, and it is only from fear or necessity that they are ever found dispersed. At 18 months the stags are capable of engendering, for those brought forth in the spring of the preceding year will couple with the hinds in autumn, and it is to be presumed that such copulations are prolific. If any thing can create a doubt on this subject, it is that the stags have not then attained more than half their growth, for they continue increasing in size till their eighth year, and to that period their horns continue to augment. But it is to be observed that the young fawns gain strength in a little time, that his growth is very quick, both in the first and second years, and that it has already a redundance of nourishment, because it shoots forth its knobs, which are certain indications of its ability to engender. Animals in general, it is true, are not in a condition to procreate till they have nearly acquired their full growth; but those which have certain times allotted for copulation, or spawning, seem to be an exception to this rule: fishes spawn and produce young before they have attained a fourth, or even an eighth of their full growth, and among quadrupeds, those that like the stag, elk, fallow-deer &c. have the rutting time precisely marked, copulate sooner than other animals.

There are so many affinities between the nutrition, the production of the horns, the rutting and the generation of these animals, that, for the better conception of the particular effects that flow from them, it is necessary to recapitulate a few of the general principles of procreation. It depends solely on the redundancy of nourishment; as long as the growth of the body continues, (and it is always in early age that this growth is quickest) the nourishment is totally employed in this operation; at that period, therefore, there is no superabundance, consequently no production, no secretion of the seminal fluid, and hence it is that young animals are not in a condition to engender; but when their growth is nearly acquired, the redundancy begins to manifest itself by new productions. In the human race, the beard, hair, increase of the breasts, and organs of generation, appear at the age of puberty. In the brute creation, and particularly the stag, the redundancy manifests itself by effects still more sensible, as the shooting of the horns, the swelling of the neck and throat, the rutting, &c. and as the stag is very quick at first in his growth, a year does not pass before this redundance shews itself, by the appearance of his horns. If brought forth in May the horns begin to appear in the May following, and they continue to increase to the end of August, by which time they are full grown, and so hard that he rubs them against the trees to clear them of the scurf; the fat also at this time begins to accumulate, is determined towards the parts of generation, and excites in the stag that ardour and desire which renders him so furious. That the production of horns, and power for generation, proceed from the same cause is evident, for by castration the growth of the horns is effectually prevented; if this operation is performed after he has shed his horns they will never be renewed, and if done when they are perfect he will never shed them again; in fact he will remain all the rest of his life in the same state as when he suffered castration; and as he no longer experiences the ardour of the rut, so the accompanying signs also disappear, and he becomes a tame and peaceable animal. From hence it appears that the retrenched parts were necessary for collecting and diffusing them over his whole body in the form of fat, particularly at the top of the head where it gives rise to the horns. It is true, indeed, that castrated stags become fat, but the productions of their horns ceases, their necks and throats never swell, and their fat is very different from that of the perfect stag, which in the rutting season is so very strong as not only to render the flesh uneatable but offensive to the smell, and will corrupt in a very short time, while that of the former may be long preserved sweet, and eaten at all times. Another proof that the horns are produced by a redundance of the nutritive juices may be drawn from the circumstance, that those of stags of the same age will be either thick or thin, in proportion to the supply of food; for the stag which lives in a plentiful country, where he feeds at his pleasure, and rests at his ease, undisturbed by dogs or men, will always have much larger and more beautiful antlers than he who has scanty subsistence, and is disturbed in his repose; so that it is easy to determine by the horns of a stag whether he have inhabited a rich and quiet country. Those also which are in bad health, have been wounded, or frequently disturbed by hunting, have seldom fine horns or good flesh; they are later in beginning to rut, and their horns are neither shed nor renewed so early as others. Thus every circumstance concurs to prove, that the horns, like the seminal fluid, are merely the redundant superfluity of the organic juices which cannot be employed in developing and supporting the animal body.

It is the insufficiency of food, therefore, that retards the growth of the horns and diminishes their size; and perhaps it would not be impossible, by scanty diet, greatly to prevent their growth without having recourse to castration. It is certain that castrated stags eat less than others; and the reason the females of this species, as well as the fallow deer, the roe, and the elk, have no horns, is because they eat less than the males, and because at the very time the redundance would naturally happen, and appear externally, they are with young, and consequently the superfluous juices are first employed in nourishing the foetus and afterwards in producing milk for the fawn. The objection that the female rein deer is furnished with horns rather supports what is here advanced; for of all quadrupeds which have horns, the rein deer has by much the largest in proportion to his size, as they frequently extend the whole length of his body; he also abounds more in fat, and those of the females are very small comparatively with those of the male; the instance therefore only serves to prove, that when the redundancy exceeds what can be exhausted by gestation, it diffuses itself outwardly in the same manner as that of the males. These remarks respecting nourishment, are not, however, to be applied to the quantity of provisions, but solely to the quantity of organic molecules which they contain; the latter being that active and prolific matter which supports animate beings, and the former a dead mass which has no effect upon the body of the animal; and as the _lichen rangiferinus_, which is the ordinary food of the rein deer, is a more substantial nutriment than the leaves, bark, or buds of trees, on which the common stag feeds, it is not wonderful that the former should have a greater redundance of organic nutriment, and consequently more fat and larger horns than the latter. It must be allowed, however, that the organic matter, which produces these horns, is not entirely separated from inanimate particles, but preserves even after it has passed through the body of the animal, characteristics of its former vegetable state. The horns of the stag in their make and growth resemble the branches of a tree; and its substance is perhaps more of the nature of wood than bone; it is, as it were, a vegetable grafted upon animal, partaking of the nature of both, and forms one of those shades by which nature always approximates to the two extremes.

In animals the bones grow at the two extremities at the same time, at first becomes hard in the middle, and at the two ends continue soft and receding therefrom until it has acquired its full length. In vegetables, on the contrary, the wood advances by one extremity only; the bud which unfolds to form a branch is only attached to the old wood by its lower end, and it is from this point that it exerts its power of extension in length. This remarkable difference between the growth of bones and the solid parts of plants, does not take place in the horns of the stag, as nothing can bear a stronger resemblance to their growth than that of a branch of a tree; they extend from one extremity only, they are at first as tender as an herb and then harden like wood. The scurf which covers and grows with them is their bark, which the animals rub off when they are arrived at their full growth; until this is completed the ends remain soft, and likewise divide themselves into a number of branches. In a word there is a perfect resemblance in the development of both, and therefore the organic molecules, which constitute the living substance of the horns of the stag, still retain the image of the vegetable, because they are arranged in the same manner as in vegetables. Here we see that matter has an influence over form. The stag, which lives in the forest, and feeds only on the leaves of trees, receives from them so strong an impression that he produces a sort of tree, of whose origin it is impossible to mistake. This effect, though surprising, is not singular, but depends on that general cause which we more than once have already had occasion to point out.

The most constant and invariable thing in Nature is the image or model allotted to each particular species, both in animals and vegetables; what is most variable is the substance of which they are composed. Matter, in general, seems to receive all forms with indifference, and to be capable of all configurations; the organic and living particles of this matter pass from vegetables into animals, without suffering dissolution or alteration, and equally form the living substance of herbs, trees, flesh, or bones. It may seem from this first glance that matter can never predominate over form, and that no sort of nourishment taken by the animal, provided he can draw out the organic particles, and assimilate them to himself by nutrition, can occasion any change upon his form, and can have no effect but that of supporting, or adding to the growth of his body. Of this we have a proof in those animals which live solely upon herbage, who, though a substance widely different from their own bodies, draw from it every thing necessary to constitute flesh and blood, and will even exceed in bulk those who feed upon animal food. In taking a more particular view of Nature we find this is not always the case. Height, for example, which is one of the attributes of form, varies in every species according to the difference of climate; as do the quantity and quality of the flesh, two other attributes of form, according to the different kinds of food. This organic matter, therefore, which the animal assimilates to its body by nutrition, is not absolutely indifferent to the reception of this or that modification: it is not deprived of its original figure; it continues to act in its own form, and though this action be almost imperceptible, yet, in process of time, it necessarily produces very sensible effects. The stag, who inhabits the forests, and lives only upon wood, produces a species of trees, which is nothing more than the superabundant part of his food. The beaver which inhabits the water, and feeds upon fish, has a tail covered with scales; and the flesh of the otter, as well as of most aquatic fowls, is of a fishy nature. It may therefore be presumed, that animals which live constantly upon one kind of food will, in time, imbibe a tincture of its aliment; and however strong the original impression of nature may be, a kind of transformation will take place by an assimilation contrary to the first. In this case the nourishment no longer assimilates entirely to the form of the animal, but the animal assimilates in part to the form of the nourishment, as is seen in the horns of the stag and the tail of the beaver.

The horns, then, are but an excrescence, a part foreign to the body of the stag, and only esteemed as an animal substance because it grows from him; it is in reality a vegetable production, since it retains all the marks of that vegetable from which it derives its origin, and resembles the branch of a tree in the manner it grows, expands, hardens, dries, and separates; for it falls off spontaneously, after having acquired its full degree of solidity, like a ripe fruit from the branch. The very name given to this production in the French language[E] is a proof that it has been considered as a species of wood, and not as a horn, a bone, a tusk, a tooth, &c. In addition to these arguments, we may add a fact recorded by Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Pliny, who all assert that ivy has been seen to grow round the horns of stags while they were in a tender state. If this be true and it would be easy to make the experiment, it would still more fully establish the analogy between the wood of the stag and that of trees. The horns and tusks of other animals are not only of a substance different from the branches of a stag, but also in their growth, texture, and form, both exterior and interior, there is nothing which bears any analogy to wood: these and the nails, claws, hair, feathers, scales, &c. grow, it is true, by a kind of vegetation, but a vegetation widely different from that of trees. The horns of oxen, goats, antelopes, &c. are hollow within, whereas those of the stag are entirely solid; the substance of the former is the same with that of nails, claws, scales, &c. but the horns of the stag resemble wood more than any other substance. All these hollow horns are covered on the inside by a _periosteum_, and contain in their cavities a bone which serves to support them; they never fall off but continue to increase during the life of the animal, and will assist in determining its age, by the number of annual rings. Instead of growing like those of the stag, from the upper extremity, they grow like nails, feathers, and hair from the lower extremity. Thus it is also with the tusks of the elephant, sea-cow, boar, and all other animals; they are hollow within, and grow only from the lower extremity. These horns or tusks have therefore no more resemblance than nails, hairs, or feathers, to the horns of the stag.

[E] The French word is _bois_, a forest, a wood, likewise used for the substance, or branch of a tree

All vegetation is reducible then to three kinds; the first is, when the growth proceeds from the superior extremity, as in herbs, plants, trees, and the antlers of stags; the second, when it is made from the inferior extremity, as in horns, claws, nails, hair, scales, tusks, teeth, feathers, and other exterior parts of animal bodies; the third when the growth advances from both extremities at the same time, as in bones, cartilages, muscles, tendons, and other internal parts of animals. Of all three the proximate cause is the superabundance of organic nourishment, and the only effect, the assimilation of that nourishment, to the mould wherein it has been received. Thus the animal grows more or less quickly in proportion to the quantity of such nourishment, and when the growth is nearly completed, it then seeks to employ itself in the propagation of new organized beings in the manner as we have before stated. The difference between animals, which, like the stag, have fixed seasons, and those which can engender at all times, proceeds likewise from the manner of their feeding. Man and domestic animals, which every day receive an equal quantity of sustenance, and frequently to an excess, may engender at all seasons. The stag, and most wild animals on the contrary, who suffer much from want in the winter, have no superabundance, nor are in a state to engender till they have recruited themselves during the summer; and it is then the rutting season commences, and during which he exhausts himself so much that he remains the whole winter in a state of langour. His flesh and blood are then so impoverished that worms breed under his skin, which still adds to his misery, and which do not perish till the spring, when he recovers new life from the active nourishment he is abundantly furnished with by the fresh production of the earth.

Thus does this animal pass his whole life in alternate plenty and want, vigour and inanition, health and sickness, without having his constitution much affected by the violence of those extremes; nor is the duration of his life inferior to those animals which are not subject to such vicissitudes. As he is five or six years in growing, so he lives seven times that number, or from 35 to 40 years. What has been reported of the prodigious longevity of the stag has no foundation, being only a popular prejudice, which took place in the days of Aristotle, and which he did not consider as probable, because, as he observes, neither the time of gestation nor of growth, indicated long life. Notwithstanding this authority, which ought to have abolished the prejudice, it was again renewed in the days of ignorance, and supported by the story of a stag which was taken by Charles VI. in the forest of Senlis, with a collar upon his neck, bearing the inscription "_Cæsar hoc me donavit_;" and the people rather choose to believe this stag had lived a thousand years, and had received his collar from a Roman Emperor, than that he came from Germany, where the Emperors yet assume the name of Cæsar.