76 
LOAVER MAMMAL GALLERY. 
•antlers, which, except in Eeindeer, are wanting in the females. 
Antlersiare bony outgrowths of the frontal part of the skull, 
usually shed and renewed yearly, without any horny sheath 
over them, but during growth covered with a sensitive hairy 
skin provided with blood-vessels, the so-called “velvet.” When 
they have i-eached their full size, the blood-vessels become 
Fig. 47. 
A female Okapi {Okapia jolmstoni). 
constricted at the “ burr,” close to the skull, and the “ velvet ” 
dries nj) and is rubbed off ; the antlers, then bare and non- 
sensitive, are ready for their sole function — fighting. The time 
of the growth of the antlers precedes the pairing-season; after 
this is over, by a process of absorption near the base, they 
become detached from the skull, and are shed. 
The series of separate antlers is ])laced on the tops of the 
cases, partly over tliose containing the groups to which they 
belong, and partly elsewhere, while a few are fixed to the walls. 
