206 DK. H. GADOW ON THE EVOLUTION [Mar. 18, 



' Transactions' (vol. xv. p. 291). It illustrated the earlier stages 

 of 32 species, of which 6 belonged to the Rhopalocera and 26 to 

 the Heterocera. As in the previous memoir, the Sphingidce and 

 the several families of the Bombyces predominated in the series 

 illustrated, and many of these were of special interest in connection 

 with what was known of the earlier stages of the same groups of 

 allied species in the Oriental Region. 



This Memoir will be printed entire in the Society's ' Trans- 

 actions.' 



The following papers were read : — 



1. The Evolution o£ Horns and Antlers. 

 By Hans Gadow, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., F.Z.S. 



[Received March 18, 1902.] 

 (Text-figure 25.) 



There are three works to which we naturally turn for infor- 

 mation concerning mammalian structures : Flower and Lydekker's 

 ' Study of the Mammalia,' Bronn's ' Thierreich,' Mammalia by 

 Giebel, continued by Leche, and Gegenbaur's ' Vergleichende 

 Anatomie der Wirbelthiere.' But the treatment of the mor- 

 phology and phylogeny of the Ruminants' horns and antlers in 

 all of them is singularly deficient and inadequate. 



The actual development of Horns and Antlers has been studied 

 often enough, but no subseqvient writer has taken the trouble 

 of sifting and reconciling the various contradictory statements. 

 Sandifort, in 1829, stated that the bone-core of the Bovine 

 horn is a compound structure, composed of a frontal outgrowth 

 or pedicle, and a superimposed ossification in a cai'tilaginous 

 matrix — the os cornu, which soon becomes indistinguishably 

 connected with the pedicle by synostosis, so much indeed that 

 the frontal sinuses in time extend not only into the pedicle, but 

 also into this os cornu. Lieberklihn found cartilage in the 

 budding prickets of the Roebuck, Cartilaginous preformation, 

 with subsequent metaplastic ossification, was advocated also by 

 Joh. Miiller, Gegenbau.r, Kassowitz, and others. Landois de- 

 clared the development and ossification of the antlers as entirely 

 periosteal. Julius Wolff and Robin et Heri-mann deny the 

 existence of cartilage, and call the ground-substance of the 

 budding antler amorphous embryonal tissue, or " substance pre- 

 osseuse." 



Riitimeyer, most careful observer and far-seeing thinker, 

 naturally homologized the os cornu of the Bovidse with the 

 deciduous antler of the Oervidse ; but the os cornu seems to have 

 fallen into oblivion until A. Brandt, as late as 1892, rediscovered, 

 or, rather, reinstated it. Brandt gives the following synoptic 

 table of " Haut- und Knochen Hoerner " {i. e. epidermal and bony 



