THE ANTLERS. 225 



number of points, the other is quite sure to have an unusual 

 number also. 



In many works on natural history we meet with illustrations 

 of antlers showing a regular progression of development from 

 the dag antler of the yearling till old age. This is unfortunate, 

 for it is misleading. Such uniformity of progressive growths 

 does not occur in nature. There is more of it in our wapiti, and 

 its near relative the red deer of Europe, than in any other species, 

 and next in our Common Deer ; but in these it is quite lost after 

 the first three antlers, and is very unreliable after the first or dag 

 antler. I have more than one hundred and fifty pairs of wapiti 

 antlers in my collection, and beside the dag antlers there are not 

 two pairs from which I can confidently^ declare the age of the an- 

 imal on which they grew. The same is true of our Common Deer, 

 though there is so much uniformity in the growths of the first 

 three antlers as to give rise to a strong probability as to the ages 

 of the animals which bore them. 



A deer with antlers of many prongs we may be sure is an aged 

 animal, but most of the aged animals here have but the two tines 

 with the snag near the base, while in Texas they have three or 

 more. 



In my collection I have two pairs of antlers from deer killed 

 near here as large as any I have ever seen. The largest pair 

 has twelve points, and the smaller has twenty-two. Both were 

 from very large deer. 



We often meet with abnormal or deformed growth of antlers 

 of deer, which may generally be attributed to some hurt during 

 their growth. A pair of these in my collection from the Com- 

 mon Deer are illustrated on p. 226. If this deformity arose 

 from an injury to the pedicels it would have reappeared in some 

 form ever after ; but if only to the growing antlers subsequent 

 antlers would not have been affected. 



The first, or dag antler, is usually a spike, but sometimes it is 

 bifid. The second usually has the basal snai?; and one tine, 

 though sometimes it has two. The third, with rare exceptions, 

 has two tines, and this is the normal condition of the antler 

 ever after in this latitude and north of us. Of the hundreds 

 whicli have grown to maturity in my grounds, not more than 

 one or two have ever developed the third tine. In the South, 

 however, it is quite dift'erent. In Texas, particularly, I have 

 studied them with much care, and although the deer is much 

 smaller than here, I have found the antler much larger, and 



