be the most powerful remedy now in use: however, the animal that furnishes this admirable medicine, has been very variously described, and is known but very imperfectly.

The description given of this animal by Grew, is as follows:-The musk animal is properly neither of the goat nor deer kind, for it has no horns, and it is uncertain whether it ruminates or not; however, it wants the fore-teeth in the upper jaw, in the same manner as in ruminating animals; but at the same time, it has tusks like those of a hog. It is three feet six inches in length, from the head to the tail; and the head is above a half a foot long. The fore part of the head is like that of a grey-hound; and the ears are three inches long, and erect, like those of a rabbit; but the tail is not above two inches. It is cloven-footed, like beasts of the goat kind; the hair on the head and legs is half an inch long, on the belly an inch and a half, and on the back and buttocks three inches, and proportionably thicker than in any other animal. It is brown and white alternately, from the root to the point; on the head and thighs it is brown, but under the belly and tail white, and a little curled, especially on the back and belly. On each side of the lower jaw, under the corners of the mouth, there is a tuft of thick air, which is short and hard, and about three quarters of an inch long. The hair, in general, of this animal, is remarkable for its softness and fine texture; but what distinguishes it particularly are the tusks, which are an inch and a half long, and turn back in the form of a hook; and more particularly the bag which contains the musk, which is three inches long, two broad, and stands out from the belly an inch and a half. It is a very fearful animal, and, therefore, it has long ears; and the sense of hearing is so quick, that it can discover an enemy at a great distance.

After so long and circumstantial a description of this animal, its nature is but very little known; nor has any anatomist as yet examined its internal structure; or been able to inform us whether it be a ruminant animal, or one of the hog kind; how the musk is formed, or whether those bags in which it comes to us be really belonging to the animal, or are only the sophistications of the venders. Indeed, when we consider the immense quantities of this substance which are consumed in Europe alone, not to mention the east, where it is in still greater repute than here, we can hardly suppose that any one animal can furnish the supply; and particularly when it must be killed before the bag can be obtained. We are told, it is true, that the musk is often deposited by the animal upon trees and stones, against which it rubs itself when the quantity becomes uneasy; but it is not in that form which we receive it, but always in what seems to be its own natural bladder. Of these, Taverner brought home near two thousand in one year; and as the animal is wild, so many must, during that space, have been hunted and taken. But as the creature is represented very shy, and as it is found but in some particular provinces of the east, the wonder is how its bag should be so cheap, and furnished in such great plenty.

Musk was some years ago in the highest request as a perfume, and but little regarded as a medicine; but at present its reputation is totally changed; and having been found of great benefit in physic, it is but little regarded for the purposes of elegance. It is thus that things which become necessary, cease to continue pleasing and the consciousness of their use, destroys their power of administering delight.

CHAP. IX.

ANIMALS OF THE DEER KIND *

If we compare the stag and the bull as to shape and form, no two animals can be more unlike; and yet if we examine their internal structure, we shall find a

Stag.

striking similitude between them. Indeed, their differences, except to a nice observer, will scarcely be perceivable. All of the deer kind want the gall-bladder; their kidneys are formed differently; their spleen is also proportionably larger; their tail is shorter; and their horns, which are solid, are renewed every year. Such are the slight internal discriminations between two animals, one of which is among the swiftest, and the other the heaviest of the brute creation. The stag is one of those innocent and peaceable animals that seems made to embellish the forest, and animate the solitudes of nature.

The stag, or Hart, whose female is called a hind, and the young a calf, differs in size and in horns from a fallow deer. He is much larger, and his horns are round; whereas in the fallow kind they are broad and palmated. By these the animal's age is known. The first year, the stag has no horns, but a horny excrescence, which is short, rough, and covered with a thin hairy skin. The next year the horns are single and straight; the third year they have two antlers, three the fourth, four the fifth, and five the sixth; this number is not always certain, for sometimes there are more and often less. When arrived at the sixth year, the antlers do not always increase: and, although the number may amount to six or seven on each side, yet the animal's age is then estimated rather from the size of the antlers and the thickness of the branch which sustains them, than from their variety.

These horns, large as they seem, are, notwithstanding, shed every year, and new ones come in their place. The old horns are of a firm, solid texture, and usually employed in making handles for knives and other domestic utensils. Bat, while young, nothing can be more soft or tender; and the animal, as if conscious of his own imbecility, at those times, instantly upon shedding his former horns, retires from the rest of his fellows, and hides himself in solitudes and thickets, never venturing out to pasture, except by night. During this time, which most usually happens in the spring, the new horns are very painful, and have a quick sensibility of any external impression. The flies also are extremely troublesome to him. When the old horn is fallen off, the new does not begin immediately to appear; but the bones of the skull are seen covered only with a transparent periosteum, or skin, which, as anatomists teach us, covers the bones of all animals. After a short time, however, this skin begins to swell, and to form a soft tumour, which contains a great deal of blood, and which begins to be covered with a downy substance that has the feel of velvet, and appears

The quadrupeds of this tribe have horns which are solid and branched; they are renewed every year, and when young are clothed with a fine, velvety, vascular skin, which falls off when the norns have attained their full size. In the lower jaw they have eight front teeth; and are generally destitute of canine

teeth; but sometimes a single one is found on each side in the upper jaw. There are about fourteen distinct species. They are all extremely active, inhabiting chiefly woods and neglected situations; and in fighting, not only make use of their horns, but stamp furi ously with the fore feet.

nearly of the same colour with the rest of the animal's hair. This tumour every day buds forward from the point like the graft of a tree; and, rising by degrees from the head, shoots out the antlers on either side, so that in a few days, in proportion as the animal is in condition, the whole head is completed. However, as was said above, in the beginning, its consistence is very soft, and has a sort of bark, which is no more than a continuation of the integument of the skull. It is velveted and downy, and every where furnished with blood vessels, that supply the growing horns with nourishment. As they creep along the sides of the branches, the print is marked over the whole surface; and the larger the blood vessels, the deeper these marks are found to be: from hence arises the inequality of the surface of the deer's horns; which, as we see, are furrowed all along the sides, the impressions diminishing towards the point, where the substance is as smooth and as solid as ivory. But it ought to be observed, that this substance, of which the horns is composed, begins to harden at the bottom while the upper part remains soft, and still continues growing; from whence it appears that the horns grow differently in deer from those of sheep or cows; in which they are always seen to increase from the bottom. However, when the whole head has received its full growth, the extremities then begin to acquire their solidity; the velvet covering, or bark, with its blood-vessels, dry up, and then begin to fall; and this the animal hastens, by rubbing its antlers against every tree it meets. In this manner the whole external surface being stripped off by degrees, at length the whole head acquires its complete hardness, expansion, and beauty.

The beauty and size of the horns of the stag mark its strength and vigour; such of them as are sickly, or have been wounded, never shooting out that magnificent profusion so much admired in this animal. Thus the horns may, in every respect, be resembled to a vegetable substance, grafted upon the head of an animal. Like a vegetable they grow from the extremities; like a vegetable they are for awhile covered with a bark that nourishes them; like a vegetable they have their annual production and decay; and a strong imagination might suppose that the leafy productions on which the animal feeds go once more to vegetate in his horns. (g)

The stag is usually a twelvemonth old before the horns begin to appear, and then a single branch is all that is seen for the year ensuing. About the begin ning of spring, all of this kind are seen to shed their horns, which fall off of themselves; though sometimes the animal assists the efforts of nature, by rubbing them against a tree. It seldom happens that the branches on both sides fall off at the same time, there often being two or three days between the dropping of the one and the other. The old stags usually shed their horns first, which generally happens towards the latter end of February, or the begin ning of March.

As soon as the stags have shed their horns, they separate from each other, and seek the plainer parts of the country, remote from every other animal, which they are utterly unable to oppose. They then walk with their heads stooping down, to keep their horns from striking against the branches of the trees above. In this state of imbecility they continue near three months before their heads have acquired their full growth and solidity; and then, by rubbing them

(g) Mr. Buffon has supposed something like this. Vid. passim.

against the branches of every thicket, they at length clear them of the skin which had contributed to their growth and nourishment. It is said by some that the horn takes the colour of the sap of the tree against which it is rubbed; and that some thus become red, when rubbed against the heath, and others brown, by rubbing against the oak; this, however, is a mistake, since stags kept in parks where there are no trees have a variety in the colour of their horns, which can be ascribed to nothing but nature.

A short time after they have furnished their horns, they begin to feel the impressions of the rut, or the desire of copulation. The old ones are the most forward; and about the end of August, or the beginning of September, they quit their thickets, and return to the mountain in order to seek the hind, to whom they call with a loud, tremulous note. At this time their neck is swollen; they appear bold and furious; fly from country to country; strike with their borns against the trees and other obstacles, and continue restless and fierce until they have found the female, who at first flies from them, but is at last compelled and overtaken. When two stags contend for the same female, how timorous soever they may appear at other times, they then seem agitated with an uncommon degree of ardour: they paw up the earth, menace each other with their horas, bellow with all their force; and, striking in a desperate manner against each other, seem determined upon death or victory. This combat continues till one of them is defeated or flies; and it often happens that the victor is obliged to fight several of those battles before it remains undisputed master of the field. The old ones are generally the conquerors upon these occasions, as they have more strength and greater courage; and these also are prefered by the hind to the young ones, as the latter are more feeble, and less ardent. However, they are all equally inconstant, keeping to the female but a few days, and then seeking out for another, not to be enjoyed, perhaps, without a repetition of their former danger.

In this manner the stag continues to range from one to the other for about three weeks, the time the rut continues-during which he scarce eats, sleeps, or rests, but continues to pursue, to combat, and to enjoy. At the end of this period of madness, for such n this animal it seems to be, the creature that was before fat, sleek, and glossy, becomes lean, feeble, and timid. He then retires from the herd, to seek plenty and repose; he frequents the side of the forest, and chooses the most nourishing pastures, remaining there till his strength is renewed. Thus is his whole life passed in the alternations of plenty and want-of corpulence and inanition-of health and sickness, without having his constitution much affected by the violence of the change. As he is above five years coming to perfection, he lives about forty years; and it is a general rule, that every animal lives about seven or eight times the number of years which it continues to grow.

The usual colour of the stag in England is red; nevertheless, the greater number in other countries are brown. There are some few that are white; but these seem to have obtained this colour in a former state of domestic tameness. Of all the animals that are natives of this climate, there are none that have such a beautiful eye as the stag: it is sparkling, soft, and sensible. His senses of smelling and hearing are in no less perfection. When he is in the least alarmed, he lifts the head and erects the ears, standing for a few minutes as if in a listening posture. Whenever he ventures upon some unknown ground, or quits his native covering, he first stops at the skirt of the plain to examine all around; he next turns against the wind, to examine by the smell if there be any enemy approaching. If a person should happen to whistle or call out, at a distance, the stag is seen to stop short in his slow, measured pace, and gazes upon the stranger with a kind of awkward admiration; if the cunning animal perceives neither dogs nor fire-arms preparing against him, he goes forward, quite uncon cerned, and slowly proceeds without offering to fly. Man is not the enemy he is most afraid of; on the contrary, he seems to be delighted with the sound of the shepherd's pipe; and the hunters sometimes make use of that instrument to ailure the poor animal to his destruction.

The stag eats slowly, and is very delicate in the choice of his pasture. When he has eaten a sufficiency, he then retires to the covert of some thicket to chew the cud in security. His rumination, however, seems performed with much greater difficulty than with the cow or sheep; for the grass is not returned from the first stomach without much straining, and a kind of hiccup, which is easily perceived during the whole time it continues. This may proceed from the greater length of his neck and the narrowness of the passage, all those of the cow and sheep kind having it much wider.

This animal's voice is much stronger, louder, and more tremulous in proportion as he advances in age: in the time of rut it is even terrible. At that season he seems so transported with passion, that nothing obstructs his fury; and when at bay, he keeps the dogs off with great intrepidity Some years ago, William, Duke of Cumberland caused a tiger and a stag to be inclosed in the same area; and the stag made so bold a defence, that the tiger was at last obliged to fly. The stag seldom drinks in the winter, and still less in the spring, while the plants are tender and covered over with dew. It is in the heat of summer, and during the time of rut, that he is seen constantly frequenting the side of rivers and lakes, as well to slake his thirst as to cool his ardour. He swims with great ease and strength, and best at those times when he is fatest, his fat keeping him buoyant, like oil upon the surface of the water. During the time of rut, he even ventures out to sea, and swims from one island to another, although there may be some leagues distance between them.

The cry of the hind, or female, is not so loud as that of the male, and is never excited but by apprehension for herself or her young. It need scarce be mentioned that she has no horns, or that she is more feeble or unfit for hunting than the male. When once they have conceived, they separate from the males, and then they both herd apart. The time of gestation continues between eight and nine months, and they generally produce but one at a time. Their usual season for bringing forth is about the month of May, or the beginning of June, during which they take great care to hide their young in the most obscure thickets. Nor is this precaution without reason, since almost every creature is then a formidable enemy: the eagle, the falcon, the osprey, the wolf, the dog, and all the rapacious family of the cat kind, are in continual employment to find out her retreat. But, what is more unnatural still, the stag himself is a professed enemy; and she is obliged to use all her arts to conceal her young from him as from the most dangerous of her pursuers. At this season, therefore, the courage of the male seems transferred to the female: she defends her young against her less formidable opponents by force; and when pursued by the hunter, she ever offers herself to mislead him from the principal object of her concern. She flies before the hounds for half the day, and then returns to her young, whose life she has thus preserved at the hazard of her own. The calf, for so the young of this animal is called, never quits the dam during the whole summer; and in winter, the hind, and all the males under a year old, keep together, and assemble in herds, which are more numerous in proportion as the season is more severe. In the spring they separate-the hinds to bring forth, while none but the year olds remain together. These animals are, however, in general fond of herding and grazing in company; it is danger or necessity alone that separates them.

The dangers they have to fear from other animals are nothing when compared to those from man. The men of every age and nation have made the chase of the stag one of their most favourite pursuits; and those who first hunted from necessity, have continued it for amusement. In our own country, in particular, hunting was ever esteemed as one of the principal diversions of the great. (g) At first, indeed, the beasts of chase had the whole island for their range, and knew no other limits than those of the ocean.

The Roman jurisprudence, which was formed on the manners of the first ages, established it as a law, that, as the natural right of things which have no master belongs to the first possessor, wild beasts, birds, and fishes, are the pro

(g) British Zoology.