THE LIFE CYCLE 365 



close-set hair, and technically termed 'the velvet.' If you 

 lay your hand on a growing antler, you will feel that it is hot 

 with the nutrient blood that is coursing beneath it. It is, 

 too, exceedingly sensitive and tender. An army of tens of 

 thousands of busy living cells is at work beneath that velvet 

 surface, building the bony antlers, preparing for the battles 

 of autumn. Each minute cell knows its work, and does it 

 for the general good, so perfectly is the body knit into an 

 organic whole. It takes up from the nutrient blood the 

 special materials it requires; out of them it elaborates the 

 crude bone-stuff, at first soft as wax, but ere long to be as 

 hard as stone; and then, having done its work, having 

 added its special morsel to the fabric of the antler, it remains 

 embedded and immured, buried beneath the bone products 

 of its successors or descendants. No hive of bees is busier, 

 or more replete with active life than the antler of a stag as it 

 grows beneath the soft, warm velvet. And thus are built up 

 in the course of a few weeks those splendid 'beams' with 

 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 free- 

 dom of the Rocky 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 circular ridge makes its 

 appearance 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 



