190 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 



antlers are grown, at once arrests the supply of nutriment which 

 has hitherto flowed into the antler which has lost the velvet, 

 through its base, the same as when the lower extremity has at- 

 tained its maximum density, and that the absorbent process im- 

 mediately commences upon the lower surface of the articular 

 plate, which in the course of a single month has so far proceeded 

 as to loosen the antler at the articulation, and it drops off pre- 

 cisely the same as on the perfect animal when the fullness of 

 time has arrived. 



If the operation is performed before the antler has so far com- 

 pleted its growth, the deposit of earthy matter is arrested before 

 the canals leading from the periosteum are filled up and the con- 

 nection between the external and internal blood-vessels is cut off, 

 when the antler never matures, but retains its vitality and be- 

 comes persistent, although it attains a higher degree of perfection 

 in its growth than the antler which is wholly grown on the cas- 

 trated buck. 



Upon the return of spring the absorption within the pedicel 

 commences in the mutilated as in the perfect animal, whereby 

 the canals for the passage of the blood-vessels are enlarged, and 

 an active circulation is established, and the new antler com- 

 mences its growth on both alike, and is so continued, though 

 with diminished force on the mutilated animal, till the summer 

 wanes and the rutting season approaches. Then a certain point 

 is attained in the growth of the antler which can never be passed 

 on the animal from which the testes have been completely re- 

 moved, while by the stimulating influence which they afford, the 

 requisite nutriment is forced into the antlers of the unmutilated 

 animal which enables them to grow on to complete perfection. 

 This influence seems to be mostly excited in those blood-vessels 

 which enter the antler at its base, upon which the internal 

 growth of the antler depends, after the destruction of the perios- 

 teum, but the latter also is deprived of a certain portion of its 

 energy, for it seems unable to so solidify the surface of the 

 antler as to close the nutriment vessels which lead from it, and 

 through which the blood which ascends through the arteries of 

 the periosteum is returned. The greatest deprivation would 

 seem to be in the capacity to transport and properly deposit the 

 earthy matter by which the bone is solidified, for it is, after all, 

 this deficiency which distinguishes the one antler from the other. 

 It is after the rutting season is past, and the activity and excite- 

 ment of the generative organs have ceased, that the absorbents 



