96 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



Fig. 80. Caucasian Ibex. 



precipice, unless he 

 can shoot it before it 

 reaches him. 



164. TheCervidse, 

 or Deer family, are 

 distinguished from 

 all the other fami- 

 lies of Ruminants, in 

 having horns which 

 are cast off at inter- 

 vals, new ones grow- 

 ing out in their place. 

 In the young animal 

 they are small, but in 

 the full-grown Deer 

 they are very large. 

 These horns are also 

 covered with a vel- 

 vety skin, and are called antlers. While they are grow- 

 ing there are blood-vessels in this skin, and from the 

 blood in them the antlers are made. You can see on 

 them, after this skin is stripped off, just the course of 

 the large arteries, by the channels for them in the horn. 

 These antlers grow very rapidly. After they have at- 

 tained their growth, there is no farther need of the blood 

 in the " velvet," and it must be got rid of, for if it re- 

 mained there would be bleeding every time that the 

 Deer should hit any thing hard with its antlers. There 

 is a singular process for doing this. In the rings of 

 bone at the foot of the antlers there are openings, through 

 which the arteries pass. These gradually close up, and 

 the supply of blood to the "velvet" is, therefore, grad 

 ually cut off. It would not answer to have this done 

 suddenly, for then all the blood going to the head would 

 be turned in upon the brain, and such a rush of blood to 

 that organ would be inj urious, perhaps fatal . After blood 

 ceases to be supplied to this skin it dries and readily peels 



