A history of British quadrupeds / [William Macgillivray].

  • William MacGillivray
Date:
[1845-1846]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of British quadrupeds / [William Macgillivray]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    species never forms large herds like the Red Deer, but is usually met with in pairs, or three together, the male remaining with his mate all the year. It» agility is astonishing, for it will bound over a spa«e of eight or ten yards with ease, and leap a wall five or six feet high with scarcely an appearance of effort. Its ordinary pace when not pursued is an easy canter, but when alarmed it bounds along with great spirit and grace. It feeds chiefly in the morn- ing and evening, often also at night, when it some- times commits depredations on the corn-fields in the neighbourhood of its haunts, and reposes by day among the heath or fern, often, when not liable to be much disturbed, selecting a spot to which it resorts in continuance. The rutting season is in the end of October, and the young, generally one, but some- times two, are produced in the beginning of April. The fawn is concealed in the thickets for some weeks, remaining crouched among the herbage during the absence of its mother. It is of a reddish- brown colour above, spotted with white in irregular longitudinal bands. The young males have merely tubercles the first year, a simple pointed snag the second, an anterior antler the third, an antler and a forked extremity the fourth; beyond this period there are no additional branches, but the horns in- crease in size until the seventh or eighth year. To- wards the end of autumn the young separate from their parents, remaining single or in small groups until the next pairing season. The Roe is usually shot in its haunts, sometimes by persons stationed VOL. XVII. u
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