GROWTH OF ANTLERS IN DEER. 



537 



phenomenon, and we owe to the patience of Dr. Soemmering the best 

 account of the whole interesting process : " Immediately after the shed- 

 ding of an antler, the lower surface of it is dry, or rather not bloody, the 

 blood-vessels being quite dead and empty. At the edge of the knob, 

 between the burrs, the openings of numerous canals are visible, contain- 

 ing arterial vessels which spring from the external carotid, and are 

 developed in an extraordinary manner while the antler is growing. 

 When the antlers have both been shed, the deer seems worn out and 

 spiritless ; he feels that he is defenceless, and seeks solitary places. The 

 round surfaces on which the antlers rest are covered with a coat of blood 

 and lymph, and surrounded by a ring containing vessels which contrib- 

 ute to the displacement of the antlers. The rush of blood to the knobs 

 is checked by the oM antler, the vessels become congested and form 

 this thick ring, cutting off the antler from the brow, and undermining 

 it. It is from this vascular ring that vessels proceed which contribute a 

 secretion of calcareous matter for the formation of the new growth. 

 The dags, or first year's horns, rest on a protuberance of the frontal bone 

 which diminishes in height each year as each successive shedding of the 

 antlers removes a layer from it. By the fourteenth day a vascular tumor 

 has filled up the place left by the shed antler, and spread over the hairy 

 skin of the knob, especially in the anterior region, to form the lowest or 

 eye-tine. On the twentieth day the protuberance, which is burning hot 

 to the touch, begins to be covered with white hair, and increases rapidly. 

 By the thirtieth day all the points of the future antler are indicated by 

 more or less prominent divisions and folds, and over the edge of the 

 hairy knob is a bluish vascular ring, the beginning of the burrs. On the 

 forty-fifth day the last division has not taken place, but by the fiftieth day 

 all the tines are pretty long. The upper portion of the antler is com- 

 pletely formed by the eightieth day, but is still covered with very sensi- 

 tive velvet. By the hundred and twentieth day the antler is fully grown 

 and the tines ossified to the end." 



Such a process is without parallel in natural history. As soon as 

 the growth is complete, and the ossification finished, the burrs increase 

 in size ; they strangulate the blood-vessels, and the velvet loses its 

 vitality, and is soon rubbed off against the branches or trunks of trees. 

 The horns annually fall off early in the year. As a rule, antlers are 

 found only on males, but have been seen on barren females. It is prob- 

 able that the various functions devolving on the female, such as gestation, 

 68 



