THE YOUNG ELK. 



51 



shoulder it may attain so great a height as eight feet when adult. The female is antler-less. 

 In the male these appendages possess quite a peculiar shape, the two together forming a kind of basin, 



YOUNG ELK. 



on account of their being developed into huge palmated concave sheets of bony tissue, which diverge 

 laterally from the skull. 



At nine months old the antlers first appear, not being more than straight and rounded dags in the 

 first year. They reach their full length in the fifth year, from which period for many more years 

 they increase in breadth and weight, and add, it is said, a fresh point to their palmated margins 

 until the fourteenth, when the creature is considered quite adult. 



