220 THE DEER OF AMERICA. 
and uniform on animals found on the east side of the Rocky 
Mountains as on the Pacific Coast. 
The second and subsequent antlers grown on these deer usually 
have avery small snag an inch or two above the burr, on the 
upper or inner side of the beam, standing in nearly a vertical 
position, but sometimes curved one way or the other. This an- 
swers well to the basal snag on the antler of the Virginia deer, 
only it is very much smaller. The lower part of the beams of 
the antlers of these are covered more or less with tubercles, those 
near the burr being the largest and quite disappearing at the first 
fork, but these are mostly confined to the upper side of the beam, 
These tubercles also appear on the antler of the Virginia deer, 
even more abundant, for they are found on the lower side of the 
beam as well. | 
A medium pair of antlers in my collection and shown in the 
illustration (Fig. 21, p.,221), may be briefly described. They 
arise from the head, in a line with the face, but spread laterally. 
Two and a half inches above the burr, a basal snag appears on 
the upper side, which is two inches long. From this point the 
beam has a slight anterior curvature for seven and one half 
inches, then it divides. The anterior prong of the left antler 
continues with the same curve, for six inches, when it forks ; 
the front tine being four inches and three lines long, and the 
other four inches in length. The posterior prong of the first 
bifurcation curves posteriorly for six inches, where it forks into 
quite unequal tines, the front one being five inches long and the 
other three inches and three lines in length. The extreme length 
of this antler is twenty-one inches. The same description will 
answer for the right antler, except that the first posterior prong 
rises eight inches before it forks, with tines but two inches and 
three lines long. These antlers are from a Columbia Black-tailed 
Deer, and as before remarked, are of medium size. I have a 
much larger pair from the same species, taken near Igo, in Shasta 
County, California, already referred to (p. 183), and illustrated 
in Fig. 22, p. 221, which exhibit the abnormal diseased prong 
descending from the lower side of the beam of the left antler. 
These antlers are twenty-four inches long. They have an un- 
usual spread at the tips. Another pair of antlers, also illustrated 
(Fig. 28), are from a Mule Deer from the Black Hills; these 
are also twenty-four inches long, but have not so broad a spread. 
An abnormal descending tine is also found on the beam of the 
right antler of this pair. Both of these pairs of antlers show the 
