182 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 



was gone, and the seat was covered with fresli blood. As he was 

 eating corn from one band, witli the other I seized the remaining 

 antler. He immediately jumped back and severed the antler 

 with a smart snap. He shook his head and ran away as if con- 

 siderably hurt, while the blood flowed so freely from the exposed 

 end of the pedicel that it ran down the side of his face and 

 dropped to the ground. An inspection of the end of the antler, 

 at the point of separation, showed not a trace of blood, but the 

 rough convex surface was as vmdefiled and as white as it is pos- 

 sible to imagine. It was some minutes before he would so far for- 

 give me as to come and take more corn from my hand. Then I 

 saw the concave seat of the antler was filled with blood already 

 beginning to coagulate, and the hemorrhage had nearly ceased. 



The next fall, early in November, the same animal was follow- 

 ing me through the grounds, begging for gratuities, while I 

 wished to bestow my attentions more exclusively to a pet gazelle, 

 and in my impatience at his persistent importunities, I kicked 

 backward, just as he lowered his head, when I knocked off one 

 of his antlers. The dislocation took place with a smart cracking 

 noise and probably by the use of about the same force as on the 

 former occasion, and precisely the same phenomena were ob- 

 served. He carried the remaining antler but a day or two when 

 it disappeared. On this occasion this was the first deer in the 

 park to lose his antlers, while on the other he carried them the 

 longest of any. 



While the growing antler of the deer is but indifferently pi'O- 

 vided with a nervous system, yet the upper portion, above where 

 the ossified wall has become established, is in a situation resem- 

 bling a high state of inflammation, and like i*eally inflamed 

 parts is exceedingly sensitive. In the deer's antler the apparently 

 inflammatory action or high temperature seems to subside so 

 soon as the ossified wall becomes established, and the extreme 

 sensibility in the outer covering disappears. There the antler 

 may be handled, compressed, and even the velvet cut through, 

 without manifestations of suffering, while above on the soft and 

 yielding part, Avhere the temperature is much higher than it is 

 below, the least pressure or even touch seems to produce pain. 



The antler of the deer sometimes though rarely becomes dis- 

 eased, when the same phenomena occur as in diseased internal 

 bones. The channels of the blood-vessels become large and the 

 vessels become expanded, and even the whole diseased part of 

 the antler becomes greatly enlarged by the separation of the 



