VOL. XIX. J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 157 



ground, in a sort of boggy soil. The first pitch was of earth, the next two or 

 three of turf, and then followed a sort of white marl, where they were found : 

 they must have lain there several ages, to be so deeply interred." 



I took their dimensions carefully as follows : from tiie extreme tip of the 

 right horn to that of the left, expressed in the line ab, fig. 11, pi. 3, was lo feet 



10 inches ; from the tip of the right horn to the root where it was fastened to 

 the head, gd, 5 feet 2 inches ; from the tip of the highest branch, measuring 

 one of the horns transverse, or directly across the palm, to the tip of the lowest 

 branch, ef, 3 feet 74- inches. The length of one of the palms, within the 

 branches gh, 2 feet 6 inches : the breadth of the same palm, still within the 

 branches, ik, ] foot lO^- inches : the branches that shot forth round the 

 edge of each palm were Q in number, besides the brow-antlers, of which 

 the right antler dl, was a foot and '2 inches in length, the other was much 

 shorter: the beam of each horn at some distance from the head, where it is 

 marked m, was about 2 inches and 6 tenths of an inch in diameter, or about 8 

 inches in circumference ; at the root, where it was fastened to the head, about 



1 1 inches in circumference. The length no of the head, from the back of the 

 skull to the tip of the nose, or rather the extremity of the upper jaw-bone, 2 

 feet, the breadth of the skull pq, where largest, was a foot. 



The two holes near the roots of the horns, that look like eyes were not so, 

 (for these were placed on each side the head in two ample cavities, that could 

 not be well expressed in the figure) but were large open passages, near an inch 

 in diameter in the forehead bone, to give way to great blood-vessels that here 

 issue forth from the head, and pass between the surface of the horn and the 

 smooth hairy skin that covers them whilst they are growing, (which is com- 

 monly called the velvet,) to supply the horns with sufficient nourishment, while 

 they are soft, and till they arrive at their full magnitude, so as to become per- 

 fectly hard and solid. 



It is not to be questioned, but these spacious horns, like others of the deer 

 kind, were naturally cast every year, and grew again to their full size in about 

 the space of 4 months : for all species of deer, yet known, certainly drop their 

 horns yearly, and with us it is about March, and about July following they are 

 full grown again. And this probably owing to the same cause, that trees 

 annually cast their right fruit, or drop their withering leaves in autumn ; that is, 

 oecause the nourishing juice is stopped, and flows no longer ; either on the ac- 

 count that it is now deficient, being all spent, or that the hollow passages, which 

 convey it, dry up, so that the part having no longer any communication with 

 them must of necessity by degrees sever from the whole. 



Another such head, with both the horns entire, was found some years since 



