The Process of Life. 29 



their " tynes " and " snags," which, in the case of the 

 wapiti, even in the confinement of our Zoological Gardens, 

 may reach a weight of thirty-two pounds, and which, in 

 the freedom of the Eocky Mountains, may reach such a 

 size that a man may walk, without stooping, beneath the 

 archway made by setting up upon their points the shed 

 antlers. When the antler has reached its full size, a cir- 

 cular ridge makes its appearance at a short distance from 

 the base. This is the " burr," which divides the antler 

 into a short "pedicel" next the skull, and the "beam" 

 with its branches above. The circulation in the blood- 

 vessels of the beam now begins to languish, and the velvet 

 dies and peels off, leaving the hard, dead, bony substance 

 exposed. Then is the time for fighting, when the stags 

 challenge each other to single combat, while the hinds 

 stand timidly by. But when the period of battle is over, 

 and the wars and loves of the year are past, the bone 

 beneath the burr begins to be eaten away and absorbed, 

 through the activity of certain large bone-eating cells, and, 

 the base of attachment being thus weakened, the beautiful 

 antlers are shed ; the scarred surface skins over and heals, 

 and only the hair-covered pedicel of the antler is left.* 



Not only are there these more or less permanent 

 products of cell-activity which are built up into the 

 framework of the body; there are other products of a 

 less enduring, but, in the case of some of them, not less 

 useful character. The secretions, for example, which, as 

 we have seen, minister in such an important manner to 

 nutrition, are of this class. The salivary fluids, the gastric 

 juice, the pancreatic products, and the bile, all of these 

 are products of cell-life and cell-activity. And then there 

 are certain products of cell-life which must be cast out 

 from the body as soon as possible. These are got rid of 

 in the excretions, of which the carbonic acid gas expelled 

 in the lungs and the waste-products eliminated through 

 the kidneys are examples. They are the ultimate organic 



* from a popular article of the author's on " Horns and Antlers," in 

 Atalanta. 



