in age his voice is more strong and tremulous: that of the hind is weaker and shorter, and she never exerts it from love but only from fear. The stag raises a frightful cry in rutting time, for he is so transported that nothing disquiets or terrifies him; he is therefore easily surprised, and being loaded with fat cannot long maintain the chace; but when reduced to an extremity he is dangerous, and will attack the dogs with a kind of fury. He seldom drinks in the winter and not at all in the spring, the dew with which the tender grass is surcharged being then sufficient; but in the heat of summer, he has recourse to brooks, marshes and fountains, and in rutting time he is so overheated that he searches every where for water, not only to appease his immoderate thirst, but to bathe himself and refresh his body. He swims much better at this than at any other time because of his fat, which is specifically lighter than an equal quantity of water. He has been seen to cross large rivers; it has even been asserted that, allured by the scent of the hinds in rutting time, stags will throw themselves into the sea, and pass from one island to another at the distance of several leagues. They leap still better than they swim, for when pursued they easily clear a fence or hedge of six feet high. Their aliment differs according to the seasons: In autumn, after the rutting season, they search out the buds of green shrubs, the flowers of the heath, brambles, &c. In the winter, during snow, they peel the bark off the trees, and feed upon that and the moss, &c. and in mild weather they range for provender among the corn fields. In the spring they seek out the trembling poplar, willow, hazel, &c. In summer, when they have abundance, they seem to like no grain so well as rye, and no wood equal to the black-berry bearing alder. The flesh of the fawn is very delicate, that of the hind and pricket not bad, but that of the full-grown stag has always a strong and disagreeable taste. The skin and the horns are the most useful parts of this animal; from the former is made a very pliable and durable leather. The horns are used by cutlers, and other mechanics, and a volatile salt, much used in medicine, is drawn from it by chemists. SUPPLEMENT. By a letter I received from M. Beccaria, a celebrated Professor at Pisa, dated October 28, 1767, it appears the pupil of the eye of the stag, as well as that of the cat, owl, &c. contracts in the light, and dilates in the dark; of this he was perfectly convinced by some experiments he made with a stag confined in a darkened apartment, but he found the effect was very different from that in the animals above mentioned, for their contraction and dilation is made vertically, while those of the stag are horizontally.