348 THE WORLD OF LIFE CHAP. 



mystery, with a picturesque account of one striking example 

 in the animal world, from Professor Lloyd Morgan's illumin- 

 ating volume. 



"There is, perhaps, no more wonderful instance of rapid and 

 vigorous growth than the formation of the antlers of deer. These 

 splendid weapons and adornments are shed every year. In the 

 spring, when they are growing, they are covered over with a dark 

 skin provided with short, fine, thick-set hair, and technically termed 

 ' the velvet.' If you lay your hand on the 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 become as hard as stone ; and then, having done its 

 work, having added its special morsel to the fabric of the antler, it 

 remains imbedded 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 the 

 Zoological Gardens, may reach a weight of thirty-two pounds, and 

 which, in the freedom of the Rocky Mountains, may reach such a 

 size that a man may walk without stooping through the archway 

 made by setting up upon their points the shed antlers." 



In the eastern European forests the horns of the red 

 deer reach a weight of 74 pounds, while in the recently 

 extinct Irish elk the large, broadly palmated horns some- 

 times reached an expanse of 1 1 feet. These remarkable 

 weapons were developed both for combats between the males 

 and as a means of protecting the females and young from 

 enemies. As organic outgrowths they are extremely simple 

 when compared with the feathers of the bird or the scales of 

 a butterfly's wing ; yet as exemplifying the need for some 

 guiding power, exerted upon the individual cells which carry 

 out the work with such wonderful precision every year, they 

 are equally striking. The blood, we know, furnishes the 

 materials for every tissue in the body ; but here a large 



