ORDER RUMINANTIA. 69 



while others turn into new, but always invariable direc- 

 tions, if no accident impedes them. These last, which 

 have formed an antler or snag, soon stop, but the former 

 continue increasing the beam, throwing off from time to 

 time others, again to form branches, till at length the 

 species of bony vegetation ceases also ; the skin or velvet 

 which covers them dries again, and the horn falls, to be 

 replaced by another. 



We know nothing of the origin of that power which 

 directs certain vessels of the head to develop themselves 

 constantly into divers but positive directions, and to pro- 

 duce the forms extremely varied in the horns of the deer 

 kind. It is a branch of the science, covered with ob- 

 scurity, deserving the attention of observers, and promising 

 interesting results. The shedding of them, on the contrary, 

 is explained in a plausible manner ; at a certain period of 

 their growth, the basal part of the beam becomes so hard- 

 ened, that the vessels which pass through them, finish by 

 being compressed and finally obliterated, causing the osse- 

 ous substance to become insensible, and, like a strange 

 body, to separate, from the rest of the organized parts 

 which are still vivacious, thus referring the operation to 

 the principles of exfoliation ; but what increases the sin- 

 gularity of the development of antlers in the Deer, is the 

 invariability of the forms, and the constancy of the laws to 

 which this development is subjected. Under similar cir- 

 cumstances the horns of two deer of the same species are 

 of similar form, and the influence of the causes which can 

 modify it, becomes observable most towards the extremi- 

 ties ; hence the basal part offers to zoologists one of the 

 most positive specific characters, although the antlers are, 

 perhaps, of all the organs of animals, the most subservient 

 to artificial influence. Thus a stag scantily fed, will carry 

 small and slender horns, without therefore being deformed ; 

 if he be in ill health, the horns are likely to become mon- 



