Antlers 5 



is devoid of hair, although in the elk the naked area is reduced to a very- 

 small patch. Upper canine teeth are frequently present, and in those 

 species devoid of antlers attain large dimensions. Lastly, with the exception 

 of the musks, the liver has no gall-bladder. Certain characters connected 

 with the internal reproductive organs of the female need not be referred to 

 on this occasion. 



The deer tribe may accordingly be concisely defined as Pecora presenting 

 the following characters. Either antlers are present in the male, or when 

 these are absent the upper canines are large and sabre-like, and the lateral 

 metacarpal bones are represented by their lower extremities. This defini- 

 tion will include not only the living, but also most of the extinct forms, 

 although in some of the latter the lateral metacarpal bones not only retain 

 their lower ends, but are complete in their entire length. At the same 

 time it must be mentioned that when we have to deal with the earliest and 

 most generalised forms we find some of these presenting characters common 

 to the Bovidce, Giraffidce^ and Tragulidce (chevrotains) ; but this is only 

 what we should expect to be the case in the common ancestral forms of 

 all these groups. 



Antlers. — As the most characteristic feature of the deer tribe, special 

 attention must be directed to the appendages which are best termed antlers. 

 Many writers call these appendages horns, and probably this is etymologi- 

 cally correct, since it appears that the word " antler " is derived from the 

 Old French antoiller, a derivative of the Late Latin antoculorum ; this term 

 having been originally applied to what is now called the brow-tine. Still 

 it is so convenient to have a distinctive term for the cranial appendages of 

 the deer, as distinct from the sheath-covered horns of the Bovidce, that the 

 use of the word " antler " in this sense is most desirable. 



Antlers are supported on a pair of solid bony processes, or pedicles, 

 arising from the frontal bones of the skull, of which they form an inseparable 

 portion ; and if in a fully adult deer these pedicles be sawn through, they 

 will generally be found to consist of solid, ivory-like bone, devoid of per- 

 ceptible channels for the passage of blood-vessels. The pedicles are always 

 covered with skin well supplied with blood-vessels ; and in young deer, or 

 those in which the antlers have been comparatively recently shed, the 

 covering of skin extends over their summits, when they appear as longer 

 or shorter projections on the forehead, according to the species. When the 



