DEER KIND. 303 



a quick sensibility of any external impression. 

 The flies also are extremely troublesome to him. 

 When the old horn is fallen off, the new does not 

 begin immediately to appear, but the bones of 

 the skull are seen covered only with a transparent 

 periosteum, or skin, which, as anatomists teach 

 us, covers the bones of all animals. After a short, 

 time, however, this skin begins to swell, and to 

 form a soft tumour, which contains a great deal 

 of blood, and which begins to be covered with a 

 downy substance that has the feel of velvet, and 

 appears nearly of the same colour with the rest of 

 the animal's hair. This tumour every day buds 

 forward from the point like the graft of a tree, 

 and rising by degrees from the head, shoots out 

 the antlers on either side, so that in a few days, 

 in proportion as the animal is in condition, the 

 .whole head is completed. However, as was said 

 above, in the beginning its consistence is very 

 soft, and has a sort of bark, which is no more 

 than a continuation of the integument of the skull. 

 It is velveted and downy, and every-where fur- 

 nished with blood-vessels that supply the grow- 

 ing horns with nourishment. As they creep along 

 the sides of the branches, the print is marked 

 over the whole surface ; and the larger the blood- 

 vessels, the deeper these marks are found to be : 

 from hence arises the inequality of the surface of 

 the deer's horns, which, as we see, are furrowed 

 all along the sides, the impressions diminishing 

 towards the point, where the substance is as 

 smooth and as solid as ivory. But it ought to be 

 observed, that this substance, of which the horns 



