630 THE SHAPES OF HORNS [ch. 



off branches (or tines), the interspaces between which latter may 

 sometimes be filled up to form a continuous plate. 



In a sense it matters very little whether we regard the broad 

 plate-like antlers of the elk or the slender branching antlers of the 

 stag as the more primitive type; for we are not concerned here 

 with the question of hypothetical phylogeny. And even from the 

 mathematical point of view it makes little or no difference whether 

 we describe the plate as constituted by the interconnection of 



Fig. 324. Head and antlers of a Stag {Cervus Duvauceli). (After 

 Lydekker, from P.Z.S.) 



the branches, or the branches derived by a process of notching 

 or incision from the plate. The important point for us is to 

 recognise that (save for occasional slight irregularities) the 

 branching system in the one conforms essentially to the curved 

 plate or surface which we see plainly in the other. In short the 

 arrangement of the branches is more or less comparable to that 

 of the veins in a leaf, or to that of the blood-vessels as they course 

 over the curved surface of an organ. It is a process of ramifica- 

 tion, not, like that of a tree, in various planes, but strictly limited 



