156 



judge, without any discrepancy between the right and the left horns." 

 Fawns, when cut prior to the formation of any horn, that is witliin 

 a Aveek or so after birth, both testes being wholly remoTcd, witb a 

 portion of the cord (vas deferens) also, will never bear horns, how- 

 ever long they may hve ; but if the bodies of the testes only be taken 

 away, the "knob" (epididymis) being left attached to the cord, the 

 aniraal will have horns, and renew them annually ; the shedding 

 being always rather later in the season, and the velvet covering re- 

 maining for a somewhat longer period on their surface than with the 

 entire buck ; and further, they will be more slender in the beam, 

 and more porous in their internal structure. These semi-castrated, 

 if I may so style them, animals will go into rut, but not to the 

 degree which produces emaciation ; nor does the great thickeniug 

 of the neck occur, which is so characteristic in the perfect animal 

 during that peculiar season ; nor are they capable of procreation. 

 When the adult buck is castrated, the horns are shed shortly after- 

 wards, and renewed ; but the persistent periosteuni, or "velvet," 

 never separates from their surface, and the horns do not again fall, 

 but remain attached during any period the animal may survive. 

 These permanent antlers are often more developed than those pro- 

 duced by entire bucks of eąuivaleut age, which I think may be well 

 accounted for from the fattened statė, and the longer influence from 

 the continued adherence of the vascular iutegument by which the 

 horns are formed. I may here observe, that circulation continues ia 

 the bone or horn after the periosteum has separated, and that, di- 

 minishing by degrees, first from the points, the vessels become obli- 

 terated, and vitality therefore ceasing, it is cast off. Redi, in his 

 ' Experimenta Natūralia,' on the castration of deer, says, " Si cervus 

 juvenis castretur, nondum emissis cornubus, cornua nunquam emittit ; 

 si castretur jam emissis cornubus, cornua nunquam mutat ; sed quae 

 dum castretur habet, castratus semper retinet. Et hac in re verior 

 est Aristotelis, Plinii, et Solini, quam Oppiani sententia, libro se- 

 cundo, de venatione versu." (16/5, 12mo. p. 162.) Redi is right 

 enough in his first proposition, but, with his ancient authorities, sadly 

 out in the two latter. Nature seems to employ different modes to 

 cause the shedding of the antlers in the entire and in the gelded buck 

 (I am alluding principally to the Fallow and to the Red Deer) ; the 

 former being by secretion, the latter by absorption mainly. In the 

 perfect animal the base of the horn is separated from its circular 

 adhesion by a secretion from the conjoined surface of the cranium 

 of a thin brownish fluid, which will even exude below the burr ; and 

 which is, in fact, the humid incipient process set up to form the 

 succeeding antler ; and the former bony union being thus detached, 

 the horn falls. In the castrati the horn is divided from its attach- 

 ment by absorption of the base of the antler, soraetimes only hori- 

 zontally {vide fig. 5), at others forming a coucavity, or even a deep 

 and irregular excavation (fig. 6) ; and occasionally the burr will be 

 partially and sometimes entirely absorbed before the antler is shed 

 (fig. 7). The rapidity of this process is the more remarkable after 

 castration of adult bucks, it being in proportion as the operation is 



