RUMINANT QUADRUPEDS. 453 



tlier; the new stem being both thicker and longer, 

 and the branches wider and more numerous. The 

 antler of each successive year has, consequently, a 

 different form from that of the preceding; and when 

 the animal has attained a certain age, the extre- 

 mities of the branches present broad expansions of 

 bone, which the antlers of an earlier growth had 

 not exhibited. 



The short bony processes which extend in a per- 

 pendicular direction on the head of the Camelopard, 

 are analogous, in some of the circumstances of their 

 formation, to the antlers of the deer, being of an 

 osseous nature, and continuous with the frontal 

 bone: but in other respects they are very different ; 

 for instead of being annually shed, they remain 

 through life, and continue to be covered with the 

 integuments, which retain, at the extremities, a 

 tuft of hair. The developement of these processes 

 in the young animal takes place in the same man- 

 ner as that of an antler, but it reaches only to a 

 certain point, on attaining which the growth is ar- 

 rested, and never proceeds farther. The arteries 

 cease to deposit superabundant nourishment, but 

 continue to maintain an exact equilibrium between 

 the expenditure and the supply ; so that the horns 

 of the camelopard are never shed, and remain per- 

 manent bony structures. 



A further modification of this process occurs in 

 the construction of the horns of the Ox and of the 

 Sheep ; for in these the bony processes arising 

 from the frontal bones are invested with a covering 

 composed of horn, the nature of which is totally 

 different from bone. Two tubercles may be seen 

 in the young calf, proceeding from the bones of 



