178 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. VI. 
The Professor then proceeds to discuss the 
question, ‘ Do Leaves fall in Autumn because 
they Die ? ’ and when that question is concluded 
he dips again into his bag and brings out a series 
of deers’ horns. ‘ In Richmond Park,’ he con- 
tinues, ‘we have a great quantity of deer, both 
red and fallow but chiefly the latter kind ; and 
I go out in May, when the antlers are shed, and 
pick up such varieties as I can find. The horns 
of the deer consist of pieces of bone, which grow 
out as processes of the skull. They are not like 
the horns of sheep or our ordinary cattle: they 
have no true horny matter about them, but are 
wholly bone, and are not retained or “ persistent.” 
I have selected from my gatherings of the horns 
of deer, which fall every year like the leaves of 
trees, the series I now exhibit, varying in size and 
character and shape. These horns, or “ antlers,” as 
they are properly called, are renewed, grow, and 
develop year by year as they are shed. They 
begin to be formed in the latter part of the month 
of May. At the end of August they are complete, 
and remain from August till May, more or less 
perfect. About the middle of that month they 
are shed. Such are the phenomena that take 
place annually with the fallow-deer in Richmond 
Park.’ 
Specimens of horns in tlieir various stages of 
growth were then exhibited and their develop- 
ment explained : ‘ and so we discern the provision 
