Mr. J. E. Harting on Forest Animals. 87
the young of the other species, are at first spotted with
white.
A pure white roe-deer is a rarity, but is not altogether
unknown. One, in the collection of Sir James Colquhoun,
was obtained near Luss, on Loch Lomond; and I have
heard of others in Germany. Occasionally one may see
a female roe-deer bearing horns; but such instances are,
of course, not common.* Mr. Duncan Davidson, of Inch-
marlo, Banchory, Aberdeenshire, shot a female roe-deer,
with budding horns, on the 26th October, 1875; and two
other such instances are mentioned in the Zoologist for
1866 (p. 435).
The roe is singularly liable to malformation of the
horns, and some curious collections have been made of
these misshapen antlers.
Before dismissing the subject of Deer, I should like to
say something of the various modes of hunting them, past
and present, and refer to some of the quaint old treatises
which have been written on hunting. But time will not
permit, and I must pass on to another, and a very different,
group of animals—the Rodents, or gnawing mammals; so
called from their mode of life, to which the form of their
teeth is admirably suited.
So peculiar is the dentition of the Rodents that it
is not to be mistaken for that of any other group.
They have only incisors and grinders, no canines, and
never more than two efficient incisors in each jaw,
I say efficient because, in the hare and rabbit, and some
allied forms, there is in the upper jaw a second pair of
rudimentary incisors placed immediately behind the front
or cutting pair, which never become developed or used.
The position and shape of the incisors proper are remark-
able ; they have no roots or fangs, but grow from a per-
manent pulp, and so continue growing through life. Their
form is that of a segment of a circle, hence they always
protrude from the front of the jaws in the same direction,
and meet at the same angle. By this means, as the teeth
* The Field, Nov. 8th, 1873.