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the other smaller, in an atrophied state, and so soft as to be A 
~ easily broken. : 
What becomes of deer’s horns? A few years ago'I saw an 
attempt to answer the question by some person in one of the — 
Southern Atlantic States, and he arrived at the conclusion — 
that the animal covers them or they would be oftener found. a 
But, in the first place, deer are not so plentiful there that 
they must be expected to scatter their horns very thickly ; 
over the open parts of the forest where they would be read- ; 
ily seen. And, again, each large buck has but two homs 
thus to dispose of each year; and the large bucks are not 
very numerous, while the antlers of the small ones are incon- 
spicuous. But the writer had, or thought he had, evidence 7 
that the buck covers his antlers with leaves. Doubtless they : 
are so covered by leaves which fall upon them, according — 
to natural laws; but in the forests, and particularly in the £ 
prairies of the west, I have seen hundreds which ce 
had never been covered by the animals that dropped them. 
They decay in the ordinary course of nature, and are alo 
eaten by some small rodent, whose tooth-marks I have often | 
seen upon them. a 
It may not be known to many that bucks often “Jock : 
horns,” and it sometimes becomes a “dead-lock,” literally. : 
have met, during my hunts, more than one pair of heads — | 
thus coupled together, and I killed one pair of bucks e 
firmly united, that they would have died of hunger if I h 5 
not put them to death in a manner less lingering and painf a 
These animals had evidently come together with great T 
lence; the antlers had yielded to the shock, and had closet 
again in such a manner that no ordinary exertion of streng 
was sufficient to separate them. It is not very easy por 
plain their position; but the beam of the left antler of ie 
was behind, and in close contact with the bases of er 
antlers of the other, while the tips of the right antler 0” 
former were locked in the tips of those of the latter. f the 
later, the skin on the back of the head at the base ° : 

