GROWTH OF DEER ANTLERS 
compare with other horns has already been pointed out ; how 
they are formed is pleasantly sketched by Lloyd Morgan: — 
“Pause as, in autumn, you enter the Gardens by che southern gate, 
before the splendid wapiti, often misnamed the elk by American hunters. 
Is there a more noble and beautiful animal in the Zoo? See how the antlers 
branch and rebranch and once more branch again! How proudly he car- 
ries them! What terrible weapons they are with their sharp bony points! 
How he clashes them against the bars of his inclosure! But come again 
in spring or early summer when the antlers are growing. How different 
they look! How careful he is not to bring them in contact 
with the bars against which he will clash them in the autumn ! 
They are covered over with a dark skin provided with short, 
fine, close-set hair, and technically termed the velvet. If you could lay 
your hand upon this velvet, . . . you would feel that it is hot with the nutri- 
ent life blood that is coursing beneath it. It is, too, exceedingly sensitive 
and tender. An army of tens of thousands of busy living cells are at work 
beneath that velvet surface building the bony antlers, preparing for the 
battles of autumn. Each minute cell knows its work and does it for the 
general good. It takes up from the nutrient blood the special materials 
it requires; out of them it elaborates the crude bone stuff, at first soft as 
wax, but erelong to become as hard as stone; and then, having done its 
work, having added its special morsel to the fabric of the antler, it remains 
embedded and immured, buried beneath the bone products of its successors 
or descendants. No hive of bees is busier or more replete with active life 
than the antler of a stag as it grows beneath the soft warm velvet. And 
thus are built up in the course of a few weeks those splendid ‘beams,’ 
with their ‘tynes’ and ‘snags.’ 
“‘When the antler has reached its full size, a circular ridge makes its 
appearance at a short distance from the base. This is the ‘burr,’ which 
divides the antler into a short ‘pedicel’ next the skull, and the beam with 
its branches above. The circulation in the blood vessels of the beam now 
begins to languish, and the velvet dies and peels off, leaving the hard, dead, 
bony substance exposed. Then is the time for fighting, when the stags 
challenge each other to single combat, while the hinds stand timidly by. 
But when the period of battle is over, and the wars and loves of the year 
are past, the bone beneath the burr begins to be eaten away and absorbed, 
and, the base of attachment being thus weakened, the beautiful antlers are 
shed; the scarred surface skins over and heals, and only the hair-covered 
pedicel of the antler is left.” 
Formation 
of Antlers. 
299 
