ON ABNORMALITIES IN THE UOltNS OF RUMINANTS. 125 



multitude of observations, made through a course of years, is conclusive 

 that nature' prompts the animal to denude its antlers of their covering at 

 a certain period of its growth while yet the blood has as free acoess to 

 that covering as if) ever had." 



It is the common impression that the animal is extremely sensitive to 

 pain whilst the velvet is in its quick state. I am, however, informed by 

 Mr. Fhipsou that he hus seen the old Wapiti Stag, we most of us remember, 

 near the entrance gate in the London Zoo, rubbing his huge antlers 

 whilst the blood flowed freely from each abrasion. 



Now I come to a very curious deformity in the Society's collection — 

 figure No. 2? It is that of' the left antler of a Cashmere Stag; the right 

 antler is perfectly symmetrical, but the left one, as you will observe, is 

 broken and bent down about 2 inches above the bez antler, and iastead 

 of branching it has formed itself into a club. There is no doubt of the 

 fracture here — it is self-evident. Either from a fall, or a blow from a falling 

 branch, or from some such injury the soft antler was broken, but the 

 velvet held on, and the nourishment continued, but. in an interrupted way ; 

 the free circulation was impeded, and instead of the tines branching out 

 according to their wont, they coalesced into a knob as we see it here. Of 

 all' the deer tribe, I have found the Axis or Spotted deer most given to 

 "sports" in its horn". The normal shape is strictly rusine with three 

 tines, yet 20 per cent, of horns show little sprouts generally at the base 

 of the brow antler. Figure 3 represents one in the Inverarity collection, . 

 in which the brow antlers have run riot altogether and the right one has 

 thrown out several branchlets. Probably in this deer there was something 

 constitutionally wrong. I have examined all the deer in the Victoria 

 Gardens and have noticed in the largest stag in the Axis pen, which has 

 very fair-sized horns, that each brow antler has an abnormal branch. 



Though it is thus easy to build up a theory on the deformities of 

 the antlered ruminants and to speculate on their persistence, a new 

 tram of thought arises entirely in connection with the hollow-horned 

 ruminants. In these abnormalities must be persistent ; with them 

 it is an exemplification of the adage " as the twig is bent, so is the tree 

 inclined," and as their horns are to a certain extent supported by bony 

 cores, it is in these we must look, in the first instance, for the deviation 

 from the usual symmetry. Figure 4 represents a buffalo head, the property 

 of Mr. Inverarity, at present deposited with the Society ; the deformity 

 here clearly begins with the bony core ; with such soft and easily deflective 

 material as horn eccentric shapes can be artificially produced, but the 

 deflections must be beyond the limit of the bony core ; in the case of this 

 buffalo the deformity, or rather wrong direction, begins from the base and 

 must have been regulated by the core* It is not an uncommon thing to 



