PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 151 
ON A PAIR OF ABNORMAL ANTLERS OF THE VIRGINIA DEER. 
By FREDERICK W. TRUE. 
The Museum received from Mr. John M. Forbes, some four months 
ago, a pair of antlersof the Virginia deer (Cervus virginianus), which pre- 
sent an interesting malformation. Tlie animal to which the antlers be- 
longed formed one of the herd kept in park on Naushon Island (Eliza- 
beth Isles), Massachusetts. 
The left antler is perfectly normal. It has the usual tynes, four in 
number, in the normal positions, and not peculiar either in length or 
shape. The right antler,on the contrary, bears only the 
' brow-tyne, which, although of the usual length, occupies 
a position on the anterior side of the beam, so that the 
outlines of tyne and beam are best seen when the skull 
is viewed in profile. From the base of the tyne the beam 
rises parallel to the latter for about one-third its length, 
and then bends backward, forming an obtuse angle. Its 
outline is undulatory, and throughout the superior third 
the surface is smooth; the tip is as acute as that of the 
brow-tyne. 
The entire length of the antler is 13.6 inches; from 
the burr to the base of the brow-tyne, 4.5 inches; length 
of the brow-tyne 5.2 inches; greatest width of beam and 
tyne at the base of the latter, 2.9 inches, 
There is nothing in the form or structure of this antler 
to suggest injury by accident or disease. a, 
The investigations of Professor Baird and Mr.Caton ‘<< 
upon the Cervide of North America show that similar alien 
cases are notrare. Of the Virginia deer, Professor Baird 
writes: “Sometimes a perfectly adult, fullgrown male will have but a 
single slender spike, thus resembling a buck of the second year.”* Mr, 
Caton’s allusion is to deer antlers in general. ‘“ Usually,” he states, 
“the first antler grown on the young buck is not branched, but consists 
of beam only, and is called a dag or spike antler, and the latter term ap- 
plies to the antlers of the adults when they are not branched, which is 
sometimes the case.” t 
Conditions exactly opposed to those which I have reported above, 
have been very recently noted by J. 8. Cockburn as occurring in a speci- 
men of the Porcine deer (Hyclaphus porcinus). + 
I am indebted to Mr. FI’. A. Lucas for the drawing accompanying this 
note. 
* BarrD: Mammals of North America, 1859, p. 647. 
tCaton: The Antelope and Deer of America, 1877, p. 193. 
t Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, LI, 1882, p. 44. 
