2 



GREAT GAME ANIMALS. 



sequence in a Museum. It has been necessary not only to make 

 them occupy most of the central line of the Lower Mammal 

 Gallery, but also to overflow into the West and East Corridors ; 

 while the Elephants have been removed to the Central Hall and 

 the Geological Department, so as to be in association with their 

 extinct relatives. 



The great majority of existing Ungulates are included in the 

 two subgroups, or suborders, Perissodactyia and Artiodactyla, of 

 which the latter is much more numerously represented than the 

 former. A large number of the members of the order — more 

 especially the Artiodactyla — are furnished with horns. These 

 present several structural types, representatives of which are 

 exhibited in the West Corridor behind the Kudu case. 



I. The simplest type is that of the Giraffe, in which three bony 

 prominences — a single one in front and a pair behind — quite 

 separate from the underlying bones and covered during life with 

 skin, occupy the front surface of the skull. The summits of the 

 hind pair are surmounted by bristly hairs. In the extinct 

 Sivatherium (of which a skull is shown in the East Corridor) there 

 are two pairs of such appendages, the hinder being large and 

 probably covered during life either with skin or thin horn. In 

 the male Okapi there are small bony caps, comparable to antlers, 

 to the simple skin-covered horns. 



II. In the Asiatic Muntjac Deer we find a pair of skin-covered 

 horns, or " pedicles/' corresponding to the paired horns of the 

 Giraffe, although welded to the skull. From the summits of these 

 pedicles arise secondary outgrowths, at first covered with skin, 

 which (owing to the growth of a ring of bone at the base arresting 

 the flow of blood) eventually dries up and leaves bare bone 

 incapable of further growth. In the Muntjac the bare bony part, 

 or "antler," is small in proportion to the skin-covered pedicle, and 

 simple in structure ; but in the majority of Deer, as in the 

 Roebuck (of which antlers in the skin, or " velvet/ - ' and also in 

 the clean condition are shown), the antler increases in size at the 

 expense of the pedicle — which dwindles — and in some species, like 

 the Sambar and Red Deer, becomes very large and more or less 

 branched. Owing to liability to necrosis, the permanent retention 

 of such a mass of dead bone would be dangerous ; and the antlers 



