Stag
Stag names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Stag or RED DEER Connection with Society"
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or RED DEER Connection with Society"; and her very high. Regarded in section, the rocks show themselves to be of three kindsconglomerated tufa, forming the basement; columnar basalt, arranged in colonnades, which form the façades and the walls of the chief caves; and amorphous basalt, overlying the columnar basalt, but pierced here and there by the ends of columns and by angular blocks. The most remarkable feature of the island is Fingal's, or the Great Cave, the entrance to which is formed by columnar ranges on each side, supporting a lofty arch, The entrance is 42 feet wide, and 66 feet high, and the length of the cave is 227 feet. The floor of this marvelous chamber is the sea, which throws up flashing and many-colored lights against the pendent columns, whitened with calcareous stalagmite, that form the roof, and against the pillared walls of the cave.
Stag or RED DEER (Cervus ela- STAFF
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or RED DEER (Cervus ela- STAFF, GENERAL. See MILITARY phus), a typical species of Cervidæ or deer, occurring in the N. of Europe and Asia. It was once found throughout the whole of Great Britain, but is now confined to the Scotch Highlands. The horns or antlers are round and have a basal snag in front. The females are hornless and are named hinds. The horns of the first year are mere bony projections; they advance in development during the second year, when the stag is named a brocket. In each succeeding year the horns grow more and more branched, the stag being named a hart in its sixth year, when the Cyc-Vol. IX
Stag or RED DEER horns may be said to reach their maximum size
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or RED DEER horns may be said to reach their maximum size. As in all deer, the horns are shed annually. The average height of a full-grown stag is about four feet at the STAG shoulders; the winter coat is grayishbrown; in summer, brown is the prevailing tint. The food of the stag consists of grasses and the young shoots of trees, lichens forming the greater part of its food in winter. The pairing season occurs in August, and the males then engage in combats for the females and become peculiarly fierce. The flesh is somewhat coarse.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's told readers in 1921 that the red deer, once found "throughout the whole of Great Britain," was "now confined to the Scotch Highlands." That is no longer true: red deer have spread and been reintroduced widely, with established herds on Exmoor, in the Lake District, East Anglia and the New Forest, while Scotland alone now carries in the region of 350,000–400,000 animals, enough that annual culling is a standing management problem rather than a conservation one. The natural history in the entry — antlers of bone shed each year, hornless hinds, the August–October rut and the stag's changing name at each age — still reads accurately, though modern writers say antlers rather than horns. The biggest scientific shift is taxonomic: DNA work published in the 2000s split the North American wapiti and various Asian forms off from Cervus elaphus as separate species, so "red deer" now covers a smaller group than it did in 1921. In Britain hybridisation with introduced sika deer is now treated as a genuine threat to the pure red deer stock.
Written for this edition, 2026.