SERVICE OF ANTLERS 
Of what purpose and value is this elaborate headgear, which 
costs annually half the time and strength of the animal, only to 
be thrown away? In the case of the reindeer-cari- ye of 
bou genus the answer seems easy: Weapons of Antlers. 
defense against wolves and shovels to toss aside the snow that 
covers pasturage in winter; but here both bucks and does wear 
them. In all other deer, antlers are produced on the heads of 
the males alone, if at all, and in the case of those whose heads 
are finally adorned with mightily spreading horns, this perfec- 
tion is reached only after several years. Furthermore, for half 
of each year all deer are hornless, and at the very season when 
the does are bearing and attending their young, when the com- 
pany and protection of a well-armed mate would seem to be of 
most service to them. Finally, as a matter of fact, the buck 
trusts more to the striking power of his fore feet than to his 
antlers in warding off such enemies as he cannot run away 
from. It appears, then, that the antlers serve their owners 
mainly in fighting with rival bucks for the possession of does; 
and it is in the gregarious, polygamous kinds that these weapons 
are most fully developed. Antlers are acquired gradually with 
increasing age, starting with the single “spike” of  aiter 
the yearling, and proceeding by an added tine each History. 
year until the pattern is completed, seven seasons thus being 
required for the European red deer or the wapiti to perfect its 
head and become a “full stag”; the language of venery has a 
special name for each stage of progress. 
The variations in the antlers of different groups arise from the sup- 
pression of parts; or from their exaggeration, as the prolonged brow tines 
of the reindeer; or from the flattening of a beam or uniting of the tines into 
a “palmated” condition, as in fallow deer, moose, etc. Extraordinary 
duplications and malformations frequently occur, mainly as the result of 
injury to the velvet in the growing stage; but no points extra to the proper 
pattern are named or counted, except as curiosities. 
A very interesting parallel is found by comparing the slow acquirement 
of a full head by a young buck with the history of the family as exhibited 
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