At the present day another sort of stag hunting takes place near Windsor Castle and in some other parts of England. In this sport, which is contemptuously regarded by many per sons, a captive stag is carried in a covered cart to the place where the chase is to occur and then turned loose. After brief interval, called giving the deer 'law' a pack of hounds is sent upon his trail, and if the stag has spirit enough to run, the hunters following on horseback have a lively chase across the aauntry, at the end of which the deer is retaken, unharmed if possible and saved to run another day. This is a rather tame tradition of the ancient sport.
From the most remote periods, the stag has been the favorite object of the chase; and the severe forest laws of the earlier Norman mon archs sufficiently attest the importance which they attached to the sport. The afforesting of vast tracts of country, by which not only single cottages were destroyed, but whole villages swept away, and churches desecrated and de molished, was the fertile source of misery to the poorer inhabitants, and of injustice to the ancient proprietors of the soil; and the cruel inflictions of the oppressive laws which were enacted to preserve the deer, increased tenfold the curse arising from this tyrannical passion for the chase,— for it was a crime less severely penal to kill a man than to destroy or take a deer.
The ancient customs and laws of that science which our simple ancestors looked upon as one of the first accomplishments of the high-bred noble, and a knowledge of which was essential to his education, were formal and technical to an extreme degree. A few of the
terms, betokening the different ages of the stag and hind, are still retained, though some what altered. The young of either sex is called a 'calf"; after a few months the male becomes distinguished by the growth of the bossets, or frontal protuberances, on which the horns are afterward developed, which during the first year are merely rounded knobs, whence he takes the name (knobber.s In the second year they are longer and pointed, and are called Bags, and the animal has now the name of abrocket? In the third year, the first, or brow antler, has made its appearance, and the deer becomes a 'spayed.' In the fourth, the beire antler is added, and he is then termed a 'stag gard.' He is a 'stag)) in the fifth year, when the third antler, or royal, appears; and in the sixth, the commencement of the sue-royal, or crown is formed, when he takes the name of *hart,* which name he retains through life. At this time he is called a "stag of ten," prob ably because the branches, including the sur royal, frequently amount to that number. After the seventh year he is said to be crocked, or palmed, or crowned, according to the number of branches composing the stir-royal. The fe male is a "calf" in the first year, a "brocket's sister' in the second and third, and ever after ward, a ((hind." See DEER, and consult authorities there cited.