European Roe 25 i 



common, and Mr. J. E. Millais has figured a pied example which was 

 killed some years ago in Scotland, and is preserved in his own collection. 

 Young tawns are tally spotted. 



The first antlers of the roe are in the form of simple spikes ; in the 

 second year they are forked once, the hinder prong of the fork heing the 

 longer ; and in the third year this hind prong again bifurcates, thus 

 producing the three-tined type. The shed antlers of one individual have 

 been collected and preserved for a period of eleven successive years by Dr. 

 C. R. Hennicke, of Gera, and described and figured in the Zoologische 

 Garten^ vol. xli. (1900). The plate, with the author's permission, is 

 reproduced on page 249. The buck was captured in 1889, when he was 

 in his second year. In 1900 he was still flourishing, although, as will 

 be seen from the illustration, the size and beauty of his antlers commenced 

 to decline in 1896. His antlers were generally fully developed in April 

 and shed in October. 



Old, and probably barren, female roedeer not unfrequently develop 

 antlers of considerable size, which, however, are never shed. The 

 phenomenon seems analogous to the assumption of male characters by 

 old barren hens of many species of game birds. 



Roe antlers are extremely prone to malformation in various ways ; a 

 large number of such malformations being figured by Mr. Millais in the 

 work already cited. In some instances, by duplication, the number ol the 

 antlers may be increased to three or four ; the supplemental ones being 

 generally, if not invariably, smaller and simpler than the normal pair. 

 Occasionally, as in a specimen in the Munich Museum (represented by a 

 cast in the British Museum), the two antlers coalesce in the middle line as 

 far as the first fork ; the union of the beams in the instance cited being 

 so complete that no trace of the original duality is perceptible. The 

 commonest malformation appears to be a spongy or " mossy " growth of 

 the surface of the antlers, as in the figure on page 252. The extent to 



