174 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 



presents simply the appearance of coagulated blood, but, as might 

 iDe expected, a closer examination discloses a regular and highly 

 organized arterial and venous system, traversing a mass of soft 

 and highly excited animal tissue. 



Now commences the process of ossification. First around the 

 border of the pedicel the osteal cells and the intercellular tissue 

 receive deposits of the earthy particles, and thus the growth of the 

 *new bone is commenced at the external portion or the circumfer- 

 ence at the seat of the antler. The process now goes on rapidly, 

 by the formation of new intercellular tissue and osteal cells on 

 the inner side of the membrane, which in turn receive their de- 

 posit of earthy matter, rapidly building up the outer wall and 

 slowly filling up the interior with cancellous tissue. The cells of 

 the cancellous tissue commence filling up with earthy matter, 

 and arranging themselves into Haversian systems so soon as they 

 themselves are formed, and so the lower circumference of tUe 

 antler is first hardened into tolerably compact bone ; but it is at 

 this very point that this process goes on the most slowly, else the 

 sources of nutriment which rise up through the bony process of 

 the skull, upon which alone the antler must depend for nutriment 

 to finish its growth after the periosteum shall have been removed 

 from its surface, would be cut off while there is much work to be 

 done especiall}^ on young animals, after this greatest means of 

 supply is gone. I was first made aware of this fact many years 

 since, when I caught a young elk with his first antlers about two 

 feet long, and finely branched near the ends. These antlers had 

 been divested of their velvet for tliree months, and to all appear- 

 ance entirely matured. Before putting him into the cage to be 

 sent to the Central Park, New Yoi-k, where he played the sov- 

 ereign for many years, I sawed oflE his antlers about two inches 

 above the burrs. I was surprised to find the blood to flow quite 

 freely, sufficient to stain the saw for the whole length used. In 

 no other case have I sawed off the antlers from so young an ani- 

 mal, but very often from adults of the various species, from none 

 of which did I find the blood to flow ; but in all cases, the blood- 

 vessels and the color were plainly visible to the naked eye, for a 

 greater or less area near the middle of the antler, until near the 

 time when it would drop off. 



But if Mr. George Kennan is not mistaken in what he saw, 

 the blood circulates still more freely through the apparently ma- 

 tured antlers of the adult domesticated reindeer in Siberia. In 

 " Tent Life in Siberia " (p. 186), he says : " To prevent the in- 



