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ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



e 



rom the standard form. The greatest abnor- 

 mality seems to be produced when the injury 

 occurs near the skull. The beam affected is 

 shorter and the brow tine twists entirely out 

 of line, sometimes drooping down over the 

 skull, and bears at the point where it branches 

 from the beam a number of protuberances; 

 probably several of the points that should have 

 taken their place farther up the beam had 

 the development been true to form. 



The development proceeds in normal fash- 

 ion physiologically, but a pathogenic condition 

 results. The same amount of vitality is ex- 

 pended by the animal to produce this dis- 

 torted growth as though it had developed 

 normally. The animal bears these antlers, 

 which are structurally imperfect but in sub- 

 stance sound, through the regular period, when 

 he drops them as in other years. Considering 

 the relation of the antlers to the body of the 

 deer, inasmuch as it seems nearly like a 

 parasitic growth and has no guiding form such 

 as the bony core that determines the direction 

 of growth of the horns of the bovines, sheep, 

 etc., one would very naturally expect the in- 

 jury of one season not to influence the growth 

 beyond one year. If the bony core of a cow's 

 horn is deflected there is no more mystery in 

 the horn deflecting in the same direction than 

 there is in bending a small twig on a tree, 

 fastening it, and then expecting it to ulti- 

 mately curve as it is trained. 



That amphibian paradox, the axolotl, may 

 lose its legs and in a few months be the happy 

 possessor of four new ones equally service- 

 able and structurally perfect. Why should 

 not the male deer develop a new set of antlers, 

 structurally perfect? But he does not. Why 

 should not the antlers grow true to the form 

 of thousands of years of true formed sires, 

 and not be influenced by the injury of the 

 season before? Evolution is not marked by 

 such radical measures as this, a change of 

 form in a single night. The renewal of the 

 legs of the axolotl is infinitely more complex, 

 for in this case we have the arm, fore-arm, and 

 the four digits. To see the small stub grow, 

 day by day, slowly developing into an arm, a 

 joint, a fore-arm, the wrist and the fingers or 

 claws, is positively uncanny. There is no dis- 

 tortion, and the completed arm or leg is as 

 perfect as its predecessor. 



The antler is detached close to the skull, 

 and the point of separation projects but 

 slightly above the bony structure of the head. 

 The injury to the new antler has no influence 

 upon, nor can it be influenced by this bony 



REMARKABLE COLLECTION OF DEFORMED ANTLERS 

 OF WHITE-TAILED DEER 



All from the same locality, in Texas. 



