India is rich in animals of the deer kind. To name only a few, there are the Sambur, the beautiful Axis Deer, the small, but fierce, Hog Deer, the Rusa Deer, the Bahrainga Deer, and the noble Cashmere Deer. The habits of these animals are exceedingly varied. Some live upon the hills, while others frequent the low lands and the jungles, and are never seen upon the higher ground. Several of the species are nocturnal, and are so rarely seen in the daytime that any one might think they were scarce animals, although they are really very common.

The Cashmere Stag or Deer is one of those which live on the high lands, upon the slopes of the mountains of Cashmere, Nepal, and the countries to the north-west of India. It prefers forests and well-wooded country, in which it finds shelter and seclusion. It rarely descends to the lower and more open country, and it is in fact so retiring and alert that it is seldom met with. By day it hides itself in the woods, but in the early morning it is tempted forth to drink at the lakes and pools which lie upon the skirts of the forest. It changes its pasture-grounds with the seasons, climbing the mountains in summer, probably to enjoy the cool, fresh air of the upper regions, and returning to lower ground in winter in search of food.

The male is a fine animal, with large branching horns, somewhat like those of our own stag or red deer, but not quite so large. In a fine and well-developed specimen the horns will often display sixteen branching points. The general colour of the stag is a rather dark grey or brown, with patches of yellowish white upon the haunches, and for some little distance along the back. The neck of the male is covered with longer hair somewhat resembling a mane. The female is very similar in colour to the male, but she is smaller, and has neither horns nor mane.

The Cashmere stag is sometimes called the Nepal stag, and it has also other names, mostly derived from the localities where it is found. Many of these are native names conferred upon it by the inhabitants of various parts of the north of India, and when they are taken up and repeated by sportsmen and travellers they prove very confusing to naturalists, who cannot always be sure that they all refer to one animal.

All stags are very attentive to their mates, and the least cry of the female will draw her companion to her side. A hunter once saw a fine male come running up at the cry of his mate, which had just been shot. The poor thing was dead, but the stag stayed by her body, and would not be frightened away until he was quite sure there was no life left in it.