those which are young; besides they are more forward in casting their horns when the winter has been mild, than when severe and of a long continuance. 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._ [Illustration: FIG. 54. _Stag._] [Illustration: FIG. 55. _Hind._]