The CALF, when once it is of strength sufficient to accompany its dam, never leaves her side during the first summer; and the ensuing winter, none but the HINDS, and males _under_ a year old, remain together; the annual separation between the STAGS and HINDS invariably taking place as before described. During the months of infancy, the courage of the dam, in defence of her offspring, is equal to any maternal affection of our own species; she opposes every force, encounters every enemy, exposes herself to every danger, and hazards her own life to insure the safety of her young. The hind has but little protection upon the score of self-preservation, nature having left her without horns, those useful and ornamental weapons with which the stag is so powerfully armed. The first year the male has no horns; the second they are straight, and _single_; the third, they shew _two_ branches; the fourth, _three_; the fifth, _four_; and the sixth, _five_; when the stag is reckoned complete, and at his full growth: notwithstanding this, the antlers continue to increase till there are _six_ or _seven_ on each side; and though the age of the deer is mostly ascertained by the number, yet it is not always certain, but is more nicely to be depended on from the thickness and size of the trunk or body by which they are sustained. These horns, enormous as they appear, are shed _annually_, which happens in the latter end of FEBRUARY, or during the month of MARCH; of which there is a most perfect regeneration before the commencement of the RUTTING TIME, when they fight for the hind with the most determined and incredible ferocity. After the season of _rutting_, the stags having been found too weak to stand long before the hounds, the operation of castration was adopted; and the stag thus deprived of the means of propagation, (by the loss of the testes,) feeling no stimulative propensity to copulate, is never debilitated, but always ready for the field, and affords _runs_ of great duration. Thus operated upon, they are then called HEAVIERS; and it is a remarkable fact, that if a stag is castrated while his horns (alias antlers) are in a state of perfection, they will never exfoliate: on the contrary, if the operation is performed when the head is _bare_, the horns will _never_ return. STAG,—the sporting term for a young GAME COCK during his second year. For the whole of the first year, he is called a _chicken_; from which time to the completion of the second, he is a STAG; and from thence forward, a COCK. In regular matches and mains for considerable sums of money, very few are brought to Pit before they are of that age; unless it is made, and so agreed on both sides, in which case it is called a stag main, or main of stags. See COCKING, GAME COCK, and COCK-PIT ROYAL.