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.