MAMMALIA. 647 



The Deers live principally in forests, as well in the Old as the New World, 

 and in very different climates ; from Africa, however, only one species is 

 known ; from Australia not one. Some species run with speed, and so 

 lightly that the beat of their foot upon the ground is scarcely heard, but, 

 especially when many are in company, an incessant rattle of the joints of 

 their thin legs or a peculiar cracking, as in the reindeer. 



The horns of the deer are bony excrescences which are developed on a 

 cylindrical process of the frontal bones (the so-named Rosenstoche) . This 

 process is covered with skin and hair; it appears, shortly after birth, as an 

 epiphysis upon the skull, with which it speedily coalesces. With this rose- 

 stock (the non-deciduous part of the horn) the horns of the giraflte beyond 

 doubt correspond. At the point of the rose-stock is developed, after the 

 second year, the horn which is shed annually. The growth of the horns 

 proceeds rapidly, so that in a few weeks they attain their full size. At 

 first they are covered by a woolly investment, a prolongation of the skin ; 

 afterwards the skin dies and falls from the horns in shreds ; many refer 

 this death of the skin to the development of a knotted ring (the Rosenhranz), 

 which, as the growth of the horn proceeds, is forming at its base above the 

 rose-stock, and which knots compress the vessels of the skin and so inter- 

 rupt the course of the blood. Afterwards a separation begins above the 

 rose-stock; the horns become loose and at last fall off.— The females, with 

 the exception of the reindeer, have no horns ; but in old females they are 

 observed sometimes, just as we stated above (p. 362) that hen-birds at a 

 very advanced age occasionally assume the plumage of the male. When 

 stags are castrated the horns are not developed, or if they had been deve- 

 loped before the operation they are not cast any more^. Finally the cast- 

 ing of the horns in cold and temperate countries occurs at determinate 

 periods, which differ for different species ; in tropical countries (South 

 America, East Indies) the casting of the horns is less regular. 



Compare Gr. Sandifort Over de rorming en onticikkeling dcr liorens van 

 zogende dieren, in het bijzonder van die der hertenheesten ; Nieuwe Verhand. 

 van de Eerste Klasse van het KoninM. Nederl. Instituut, 11. 1827, with many 

 figures. 



On the genus of the deers compare Cuvieb Rech. s. les Oss. foss. iv. 3ifeme 

 ^dit. pp. 23 — 69; des cerfs vivans; Ducrotay de Blainville Journal de 

 Physique, Tome 94, pp. 254 — 284, 1823; Hamilton Smith in Griffith 

 Animal Kingdom, Tom. v. 1827, Pocheean Monographie des especes die 

 genre Cerf, avec 8 pi., Archives du Mus. vi. 1852, pp. 265 — 492. Most 

 of the species are when young ruddy-brown with white spots, a colour 

 which in Cervus Axis Erxl. from Bengal (Buff. xi. PL 28, 29, Menag. 

 du Mus. II. ^d. 8vo, pp. 99 — 100, fig. of female) persists for the whole 

 life. 

 Sp. Cervus Alces L., ScHBEB. Smigth. Tab. 246 A, B, c, D, Diet. univ. d'Hist. 

 nat., Mammif. PI. 11 bis, fig. 2, Guv. R. Ani., ed. ill., Mammif. PI. 87, 



1 



LiNN^US indeed says of the reindeer, " castratus quofannis cornua deponit." Syst. 

 nat. I. ed. 12, p. 93. This is maintained by Sdndevall also, in opposition to the 

 denial of later writers. 



