188 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 
still living, but if he is, and this extraordinary appendage has 
continued its growth in the same unique direction, it must exhibit 
a curious spectacle at this time and be an interesting object 
for study to the naturalist. 
I have several castrated deer in my grounds which were there 
when * Billy ” was sent to New York, but none of them have ap- 
proached the specimen mentioned in the redundancy of this basi- 
lar growth. Still the difference is only in degree. This en- 
largement of the base and diminution of the shaft seems to be 
less and less each year as the animal grows older. 
In October, 1865, I castrated my first Wapiti, or Elk, the day 
after he had killed Mr. Demmick, who in spite of locks and a 
very substantial picket fence eight feet high had managed to get 
into the park appropriated exclusively to the elk. That was the 
most terribly wicked elk I have ever seen. For a few days after 
the operation he seemed madder than ever. At length, how- 
ever, his rage gradually subsided, and he was ever after quite an 
amiable brute. 
As I expected, within four weeks the splendid antlers which 
had adorned his head had disappeared, and only the large pedi- 
cels which had supported them remained to disfigure the contour 
of his head. ‘The next year new antlers grew, but smaller and 
with fewer branches than the old, differing in this respect mate- 
rially from those observed on the smaller species castrated when 
fully adult. As was expected, these did not lose their velvet at 
the time it was shed from the antlers of the perfect bucks, but 
the growth was simply suspended. During December, the beam 
of one antler, about eighteen inches from the point, was broken 
off by some accident. This fragment afforded a rich field for 
study, but I was not satisfied with it and killed the animal dur- 
ing the winter, and was so enabled to establish many facts only 
suspected before, but to state each in detail would be too tedious. 
The successor to the deposed monarch of the herd was only 
less wicked than the other. He was castrated on the Ist of 
January, 1867. The present antlers were cast and the new ones 
grew, and suspended their growth as in the former case, and so 
they have continued to the present day. These were too large 
to be frozen through and so were not broken off near the head, 
as has always been the case with the smaller species, but only an 
inch or two of the ends were broken. The next year’s growth 
was to teach me something new, and I watched it with interest, 
rather expecting to see active growths shooting out from the 
