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British Deer and their Homs 
perruque heads proper, such as we see in the stag’s head on p. 107, for that growth, which 
is spongy, light, and of no solidity, is the result of completely emasculating an adult male deer 
and practically destroying his sex. 
Many of my readers are doubtless aware that when a calf is cut he will grow no horns, 
but it is perhaps not generally known that when an adult deer is operated upon at the time 
he is about to grow fresh horns, the forces of nature are not absolutely killed, and the pedicles 
SO-CALLED PERRUQUE HEADS, SCOTLAND 
throw out the light puffy mass with a velvet covering, as seen on the right horn of the Cole- 
brook stag on p. 107. This would very slowly but eventually peel, and we then have the 
complete head of a real perruque stag. 
These real perruque heads are extremely rare, and can scarcely exist except as the result 
of artificial production. The real question of interest to naturalists, however, is this : Why 
should the effect of an injury to the generative organs so often create additional horn-growth, 
especially on the surface in the case of roe, when we know that wild stags in any way injured 
in the testicles rather show weakness and abnormality on the side on which the injury has 
taken place ? Doubtless the heads of roe are sometimes affected in the same way as the stags— 
