THE STAG. 69 



furnish convincing examples. In them we distinctly 

 see, and can trace even, the process of its unfolding, 

 just as in the aloe the coming leaf is perceptible while 

 as yet immature and unseparated from the core around 

 which it is folded, but whence it will soon be loosened ; 

 or as on a branch of ivy or of the chestnut we see the 

 swelling rind where a fresh offset is about to put forth, 

 so on the stag's horn the very same process may be 

 observed. Different as, at first sight, may seem their 

 natures, each growth presents a similar appearance : the 

 one rooted in, and growing out of, the hard skull-bone of 

 a living animal, and carried about by it from place to 

 place ; the other springing up out of the soft, moist, 

 warm, fecundating earth, where endless spreading fila- 

 ments hold it stationary. 



Like a blossom about to burst and open, is the 

 upper part of the beam, when the sprays forming the 

 crown are on the point of appearing. The thick stem 

 is swelling with a teeming germ ; there is an indication 

 of manifold new forms of life about to appear. But 

 from some cause the further development has been 

 checked. Nature perhaps was exhausted, and incapa- 

 ble of further effort ; and thus the germing ramification 



pasturage than now, when the woods are cut down and the land is 

 highly cultivated. Abundance of nutritious food produces generally 

 antlers of large growth. 



F 3 



