56 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



off the skin by scraping his new antlers on the brushwood. 

 September sees him fully armed in his bony spears, strong in 

 body, glorying in his weapons and his strength, and ready to 

 battle with all comers. 



Those who have studied the Washington Monument will 

 remember the dark weather-mark which came when the Civil 

 War stopped the growth of the structure for a time. They 

 will recognize the signs of slow growth at the massive base, 

 the stones contributed by the various States, when their 

 reverent patriotism was roused, and the less eventful ending 

 as the point was reached. In the same way the stag's antlers 

 are a record of the life that grew them, brought them forth 

 in fever heat, produced with a rush at enormous cost, drain- 

 ing all the bodily resources for a time. The faintest slacking 

 of the supplies, an excess of antler material in the food, the 

 slightest weakening of the heart that is backing the enterprise, 

 an injury to the sexual organs that inspired it, or any hurt 

 on the growing antler, a cold, an attack of indigestion — is re- 

 flected at once in the structure that is a-building. The most 

 vigorous constitution produces the finest antlers. A stag too 

 young or too old produces antlers which are below standard. 

 All antlers are a reflex of the owner's vicissitudes while he was 

 growing them. What wonder, then, that no two antlers are 

 alike! The thousand different haps have produced a thousand 

 different types. Most of these must be accepted as strange 

 instances due to unexplained causes; "freak horns," the 

 hunters call them. They are beyond our present com- 

 prehension. 



Through the kindness of his Grace the Duke of Bedford 

 I am enabled to show a series of antlers, the successive 

 growths of one bull Wapiti that lived in the Park at Woburn 

 Abbey. (Fig. 2.) 



The second of the spikes grown in his first year was never 

 found, but it was very small. The two switches (No. 8 in the 

 series) were grown in a year of sickness. The stag was weak 

 and ill without known cause, and shed not only his horns, 

 but the two large hoofs of each foot, going sore-footed for 



