172 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 
through indentations in the burr. So was conclusively refuted 
the old notion that the growth of the burr destroys those blood- 
vessels by compression, and hence the velvet dies for want of nu- 
triment. This notion was the result of an ingenious guess with- 
out study and investigation. And so it is of many theories in 
natural history. 
The evidence, derived from a very great multitude of observa- 
tions, made through a course of years, is conclusive that nature 
prompts the animal to denude its antlers of their covering, at 
a certain period of its growth, while yet the blood has as free 
access to that covering as it ever had. 
While, as I have shown, this is a true bone, and is supplied 
its nourishment in substantially the same way as other bones are 
supplied, it is still an anomalous bone, and nature has provided 
means meet for these anomalies. It springs up rapidly, and, in 
a few months so far matures that it ceases to require nourish- . 
ment for its enlargement, but only for its internal solidification, 
and does not, to any appreciable degree, undergo the changes of: 
waste or absorption and renewal which take place with the inter- 
nal bones, but the equivalent of this is provided for by its entire 
removal so soon as it becomes inert, and then succeeds again its 
entire renewal. If the periosteum is destroyed on a portion of 
the internal bone, the part thus denuded is lable to die for want 
of the requisite nutriment and to be thrown off from the rest of 
the bone as foreign matter. In the antler, when the periosteum 
is entirely removed from the whole surface, it still lives for a 
time, and progresses with its internal growth, filling up the cav- 
ities of the cancellous tissue with great rapidity from the abun- 
dant supply of nutriment it receives through the beam from its 
very seat, till the work is done, and the antler becomes an inert 
mass, a foreign substance, and it is thrown off entire. 
These are the peculiarities of this anomalous member. Now 
let us examine and we shall see how beautifully nature has pro- 
vided, in the system for nutrition, to meet these peculiarities, 
these extraordinary requirements. In doing this we shall be 
obliged to run a sort of parallel in the process of growth with 
the internal persistent bones, for so shall I be enabled to explain 
the most intelligibly the results of my investigations. 
In both, the great source of nutriment, during active growth, 
is the arterial system of the periosteum. Within we find the 
Haversian system complete, with only such modifications as the 
exigencies which the peculiarities of this bone present. For in- 
