1010 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



POINTS NO REAL INDEX OF AGE 

 Antlers of a wapiti in second, third, fourth and fifth stages. 



SUCCESSIVE STAGES OF ANTLER GROWTH 

 Rise, progress and decline in the antlers of an Axis Deer. 



ANTLERS AND RATTLES 



MANY people believe that the age of a 

 rattlesnake can be determined by the 

 number of his rattles, and an equal 

 number estimate the years in the life of a male 

 deer by the number of points on his antlers. 

 As a matter of fact neither theory is cor- 

 rect. The largest rattler may have few 

 rattles and a small one twice the number of 

 the big one. Sometimes the rattles are 



broken off by violent contact with rocks or 

 bushes, and the damage repaired by the 

 process of nature at the rate of about three 

 segments each year. 



So in the end the calculator is quite as far 

 from the true solution of the problem as in the 

 beginning. At birth the rattlesnake has a 

 tiny button where his rattles are ultimately 

 to be. Therefore at the end of the first year — 

 if he should live — he would be, according to 

 theory, three years old; or perhaps three and 



