HORNS AND ANTLERS. 231 



and Persia. But the antlers which are found fossil in 

 the peat and cavern-deposits of this country indicate 

 that the predecessors of our own Eed Deer attained 

 equally gigantic dimensions. The extinct Gigantic Irish 

 Deer had, however, the finest antlers of any member 

 of the family, their expanse from tip to tip sometimes 

 exceeding 11 feet. Alone among the deer tribe, the 

 Eeindeer of the northern regions of Europe and America 

 has antlers in the female as well as in the male ; thus 

 indicating that in this instance the function of these ap- 

 pendages is connected with something else besides the 

 combats of the males during the breeding season. 



Having said thus much in regard to antlers, our 

 next theme is that of horns, which we shall find to 

 be of a totally different nature. The woodcut (Fig. 79) 

 shows the upper part of the skull and horns of an 

 Antelope. These horns are supported on bony pro- 

 minences arising from the forehead, without any 

 "burr" at their base, and forming, in fact, part and 

 parcel of the skull itself. During life they are per- 

 meated by blood-vessels which traverse the whole of 

 their interior, and they are coated by the hollow sheaths, 

 to which the term horn is properly restricted. In 

 structure these horny sheaths are merely a specially 

 modified kind of skin, somewhat analogous to our own 

 nails; and they are connected with the underlying 

 horn-core by soft tissue and blood-vessels. Thus the 

 horns of an Ox, Sheep, Goat, or Antelope, are essentially 

 living structures as we may see for ourselves in the 

 case of an Ox or Cow which has had the misfortune to 



