BRITISH QUADRUPEDS. 



THE STAG OR RED DEER. 



THE stag of the European forests is a fine animal, 

 with large branching horns, which are annually lost 

 and re-produced. This process is very remarkable, 

 since a stag's horn, weighing, perhaps, twenty-five 

 pounds, is completely formed in ten weeks. It grows 

 from the outer table of the skull, and has around it 

 a tender soft covering, full of vessels ; but when it 

 has acquired its full form and strength, this velvet 

 substance is destroyed in a very curious manner. At 

 the root of the horn, near the skull, a circle of tu- 

 bercles, called the burr, is found j the principal vessels 

 run between these tubercles, and, as they grow, they 

 close in on the ascending blood-vessels, and prevent 



B 



