HORNS AND ANTLERS. 227 



Commencing with antlers, it is scarcely necessary to 

 say that the organs so named are the branching bony 

 protuberances borne upon the heads of the males of 

 most species of Deer during a certain part of the year. 

 The nature of these appendages is well shown in the 

 woodcut on page 229, drawn by Mr. H. A. Cole, from 

 the head of a Fallow-Deer shot in Epping Forest in 

 1884. In the figured species the extremities of the 

 antlers are flattened out, and are accordingly termed 

 palmated ; but in the Eed Deer, and most other species, 

 they are more or less nearly cylindrical throughout 

 the greater part of their length. 



The most characteristic feature of the outer surface 

 of an antler is its ruggedness, which reminds us some- 

 what of the bark of a tree, and is taken advantage of 

 in the manufacture of so-called "buckshorn" knife- 

 handles, &c. Antlers are, indeed, almost quite peculiar 

 in that they represent, when fully formed, an entirely 

 dead structure borne by a living animal as part and 

 parcel of itself, and their mode of growth is very in- 

 teresting. Thus, some time after a stag has shed its 

 antlers, there appear on the summit of the skull two 

 small velvety knobs, very tender and sensitive, and 

 supplied by an unusual number of blood-vessels. 

 These knobs, which are deposits of bony matter, very 

 rapidly increase in size, and soon begin to branch into 

 a number of so-called tines, and finally assume the 

 form .of the complete antlers. It will thus be evident 

 that even when fully grown the new antlers are still en- 

 tirely covered with the soft skin known as the " velvet," 



