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Here the stag is represented as possessing reason and speech, and therefore the pronoun who is employed. In mythological writings in general, such as the Fables of Æsop, inferior animals are very properly denoted by the personal relative.

Which is applied to things inanimate, and creatures either devoid of all indications of rationality, or represented as such. “The city, which Romulus built, was called Rome.” Here which is used, the word city being the antecedent, to which it refers.

“The sloth, which is a creature remarkable for inactivity, lives on leaves and the flowers of trees.” Here the sloth, an animal hardly possessing sensation or life, is expressed by which.

The rule here given for the use of these pronouns is not uniformly observed, several good writers occasionally applying them indifferently to inferior animals, without any determinate principle of discrimination. It would be better, however, were this rule universally followed; and if such modes of expression as “frequented by that fowl, whom nature has taught,” were entirely repudiated.