APPENDIX. 417 



give out an oleaginous matter intended to protect the hoof against the snow." 

 Prior to December last, Mr. Morrow said that he had paid very little attention 

 to these tubes, and had the question been asked him, Were they scent glands ? 

 the answer might have been affirmative, but after a careful examination of the 

 animal while warm, he had come to the conclusion that these tubes are not 

 " glands," properly so called. His first view, that the tubes were for the pur- 

 pose of strengthening the bones of the feet of this animal in its spring, from 

 further examination of a number of fresh tubes, and from the observations of 

 Dr. Sommers, does not now appear to be tenable, and for his own part he had 

 to adopt Camper's statement, and could not say what was their use; but they 

 are not scent " glands," if they were it seemed scarcely probable that as the 

 buck comes to maturity he would be deprived of the means of leavin"' scent 

 from his fore feet at the time when he most required it, without taking into 

 consideration the fact that the tube only exists in the fore feet of the male (up 

 to an unknown age) or in the female in a rudimentary state. 



The waxy matter is contained in the tubes of the hind feet of the Caribou, 

 and in all the tubes in the feet of the Virginia deer, owing to their shape, and 

 the disagreeable smell ascribed to this matter is due to the quantity of it re- 

 tained in a narrow compass. The tubes of the Caribou are rather wider in the 

 mouth and of more equal diameter to their lower end than those of the Vir- 

 ginia deer, which at their opening are somewhat narrow and widen towards 

 their centre. The Moose, contrary to preconceived ideas (and this shows 

 how little our animals are studied), also has tubes on its feet, fully developed 

 in the hind, rudimentary in the fore feet, but of a very different shape from 

 those of the Caribou and Vii'ginia deer, being in the hind feet very wide at 

 the mouth and gradually tapering towards their lower exti'cmities; these from 

 their shape can retain but little if any waxy matter. 



In general terms, the buck Caribou when voung has the tubes in the fore 

 feet in a rudimentary form, which instead of passing upward and backward 

 to the skin close to the dew-claws, as in the developed tube of the hind 

 feet, lie between and nearly parallel with the bones of the feet, and they are 

 gradually absorbed until certainly in the adult male they entirely disappear ; 

 the doe has them also perfectly developed in the hind and rudimentary in the 

 fore feet, and it is a question which is yet to be decided whether these tubes 

 ever entirely fade out of the feet of the doe. In the old doe the tubes al- 

 though small are still plainly to be seen. A young moose, in possession of 

 Mr. J. W. Stairs, has the tubes in all its feet, those in the hind feet are 

 perfectly developed, and pass, as in the Caribou, between the phalanges; in 

 the fore feet they are, as in the Caribou of the same age, only rudimentary, but 

 at what time of life they disappear on this animal, or whether in male or fe- 

 male, or both, cannot, owing to our prohibitory law, at present, be decided. 



Mr. Morrow said that it had been shown that the Caribou and moose have 

 the tubes developed in the hind and rudimentary in the fore feet. An exam- 

 ination of a Wapiti or Elk {Cervus Canadensis) skin with feet attached, in 

 Mr. Egan's collection, presented the fact, confirmed by Judge Caton, that this 

 animal has no tube in any foot, and that its feet are of a different shape from 

 those of the Moose, Caribou, or Virginia deer, and that the phalanges are very 

 much shorter in proportion to the size of the aniaial in the specimen referred 

 to than in the Caribou or Virginia deer ; from the metacarpo-phalangeal artic- 

 ulation to the point of the hoof they measui-e seven inches, while those of the 

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