190 THE DEER OF. AMERICA. 
antlers are grown, at once arrests the supply of nutriment which 
has hitherto flowed into the antler which has lost the velvet, 
through its base, the same as when the lower extremity has at- 
tained its maximum density, and that the absorbent process im- 
mediately commences upon the lower surface of the articular 
plate, which in the course of a single month has so far proceeded 
as to loosen the antler at the articulation, and it drops off pre- 
cisely the same as on the perfect animal when the fullness of 
time has arrived. 
If the operation is performed before the antler has so far com- 
pleted its growth, the deposit of earthy matter is arrested before 
the canals leading from the periosteum are filled up and the con- 
nection between the external and internal blood-vessels is cut off, 
when the antler never matures, but retains its vitality and be- 
comes persistent, although it attains a higher degree of perfection 
in its growth than the antler which is wholly grown on the cas- 
trated buck. 
Upon the return of spring the absorption within the pedicel 
commences in the mutilated as in the perfect animal, whereby 
the canals for the passage of the blood-vessels are enlarged, and 
an active circulation is established, and the new antler com- 
mences its growth on both alike, and is so continued, though 
with diminished force on the mutilated animal, till the summer 
wanes and the rutting season approaches. Then a certain point 
is attained in the growth of the antler which can never be passed 
on the animal from which the testes have been completely re- 
moved, while by the stimulating influence which they afford, the 
requisite nutriment is forced into the antlers of the unmutilated 
animal which enables them to grow on to complete perfection. 
This influence seems to be mostly excited in those blood-vessels 
which enter the antler at its base, upon which the internal 
growth of the antler depends, after the destruction of the perios- 
teum, but the latter also is deprived of a certain portion of its 
energy, for it seems unable to so solidify the surface of the 
antler as to close the nutriment vessels which lead from it, and 
through which the blood which ascends through the arteries of 
the periosteum is returned. The greatest deprivation would 
seem to be in the capacity to transport and properly deposit the 
earthy matter by which the bone is solidified, for it is, after all, 
this deficiency which distinguishes the one antler from the other. 
It is after the rutting season is past, and the activity and excite- 
ment of the generative organs have ceased, that the absorbents 
