Hart (deer) "As pants the hart for cooling streams" for its common meter (CM) rendering of the Psalm 42 text. Hart (deer) Hart is an archaic word for "stag" (from Old English "heorot", "deer" – compare with modern Dutch "hert", medieval French "hart", German "Hirsch" and Swedish/Norwegian/Danish "hjort", also "deer"). Specifically, "hart" was used in medieval times to describe a red deer stag more than five years old. In medieval hunting terms, a stag in its first year was called a "calf" or "calfe", in its second a "brocket", in its third a "spayed", "spade", or "spayard", in its fourth a "staggerd"
Red deer characterized by a four-chambered stomach. Genetic evidence indicates the red deer as traditionally defined is a species group, rather than a single species, although it remains disputed as to exactly how many species the group includes. The closely related and slightly larger American elk or wapiti, native to North America and eastern parts of Asia, had been regarded as a subspecies of red deer, but recently it has been established as a distinct species. It is probable that the ancestor of all red deer, including wapiti, originated in central Asia and resembled sika deer. Although at one time red deer