i6 



The Museum Gazette 



never, except by accident, are detached. Horns are distinc- 

 tive of animals allied to cattle, sheep, goats and antelopes, 

 as antlers are of the whole deer tribe. Yet it happens, as is 

 the case in so many departments of natural history, that there 

 are connecting links in which these distinctions are lost or 

 merged. The best example of this occurs in the prong- 

 horned antelope. 



The prong -horn, or prong-buck, or prong-horned antelope 

 occurs in North America. It has hollow horns, and the core 

 is not branched, but from the horns themselves a single tine 

 or prong grows. Its horns are shed, a new one forming 

 under the old. 



The antlers of different species present innumerable 

 varieties as to form, and long familiarity is needed to 

 assign the animal to which each belongs. Every museum 

 ought, however, to possess a series of the more common 

 ones. 



The antlers of the common fallow deer of our English 

 parks may be recognised by their upper tines being spread 

 out in palmate fashion. The lower tines are all round. The 

 antlers as a whole are more handsome and much better 

 balanced than those of the reindeer. Only the male wears 

 them, and they are shed every year, being reproduced each 

 autumn with increase in the number of their tines. 



The little roebuck (Capreolas capvea), one of the smallest 

 of the deer tribe, has short stout horns. As is the case in 

 almost all deer these are the possession of the males only. 

 From the front of the shaft a few inches from its base a 

 single strong short tine is produced and 8 inches higher the 

 shaft divides into an expanded Y and so ends. 



In the reindeer both sexes possess antlers, a very excep- 

 tional condition. Those of the male are the larger. This 

 deer is remarkable for the length and the variability of its 

 much-branched antlers. No two pairs are exactly alike, nor 

 do those of a pair ever exactly correspond with each other. 

 The main branch usually passes backwards over the animal's 



