The Zoology of North American Big Game 



they are composed of agglutinated hairs, set on a 

 bony core projecting from the frontal region of the 

 skull. 



It is well known that these horn sheaths are at 

 times shed and reproduced, but the exact regularity 

 with which the process takes place is by no means 

 certain, although such direct evidence as there is 

 goes to prove that it occurs annually in the autumn. 

 Prong-bucks have shed on eight occasions in the 

 Zoological Gardens at Philadelphia, five times by 

 the same animal, which reached the gardens in 

 October, 1899, and has shed each year early in 

 November, the last time on October 22, 1903,* 

 and the writer has seen one fine head killed about 

 November 5 in a wild state, on which the horn- 

 sheaths were loose and ready to drop off. 



But few of these delicate animals have lived 

 long enough in captivity to permit study of the 

 same individual through a course of years, and the 

 scarcity of observations made upon them in a wild 

 state is remarkable. That irregularity in the 

 process would not be without analogy, is shown by 



* It is interesting to note that the first pair shed meas- 

 ured 7 l /4 inches, on the anterior curve; the second pair g l /2, 

 and the last three n inches each. The largest horns ever 

 measured by the writer were those of a buck killed late in 

 November, 1892, near Marathon, Texas, and were 

 inches in vertical height and 21 along the curve. 



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