Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1883-08-15
Deer Antlers.

Almost all kinds of deer il which the
antlers are small or little evolved tend
TO supplement them by fighting teeth.
On the other hand, it Is the more usual
habit of ali prairie or forest ruminants
10 fight enc another by buttIng with the
head, and under such circumstances
the possession of ary protuberance or
knob upon the forehead, of whatever
sort, would be certain to give the ami
mails which happened 10 display it
great advantage over their rivals In the
annual wager of battle. Hence il hap
pens that three diverse types of head
gear have been separately developed in
three groups Of ruminsnts, In the
giraffes distinct conlcal bone, covered
with skin and hair, buds out from each
side of the brow, and forms q danger
Gus weapon of offense capable OF frac-
tuning the skull OF a rival, as happened
once during giraffe fight at the Zoo.
In the hollow-hornedi iumlnants, sucn as
sntelopes and cow-kinds-thst is 10 say,
all those sorts with true horns, as dis
tinguished from antIers-the bony core
forms a part of the skull itself, and is
coated by a horny covering, which is
never shed during the animals life.
And in the deer tribe, which possess
antlers instead of born, the weapons OF
offense are also bony, but without any
coating of horn, and in the final state
at least are quite naked. Each OF these
three distinct types of butting appara-
tus must have been separately evolved
from a primitive hornless ancestor; and
each Except that of tine now quite
unique giraffes) has undergone many
subsequent changes and notifications
in adaptation to special needs. Some
isolated species Of the deer, such as the
American brockets, have hardly got at
all beyond the very first stage in the
production of antlers; they have only a
pair of knobs on the forehead, like the
simple days of those young red deer In
their first year which the keepers know
as brockets. SO, again, Chinese munt
lac has little beams hardly an inch long,
supplemented by a powerful halr of
canine tusks. One stage above this
early type in evolution comes in COM
mon muntjac of India, well known to
sportsmen IN the Deccan, with artlers
about four inches long, and possessing
a single rudimentary brow tine beside
the beam. This second stage is reached
and passed by the red deer in the second
year. Thence we can trace a constant
progress, through kins which have
triple branches, like the staggard, to
the very much subdivided antlers of our
own red deer, or the still more complex
armor of the wapiti and the Barbary
deer, Each higher species faithfully
reproduces from season to season, In its
own growth, the various stages through
which It's ancestors have passed; and We
can place side by side perfect series OF
corresponding forms In the two modes
of development, each year of the red
deer or waplti being paralleled by a
close similar adult animal of some other
species. 1t is noteworthy, too, that the
fossil order exactly answers to what we
should expect il to be in this respect;
earliest deer kind whose remains We
know haYe very simple and rudlmentary
antiers, indeed, aud they gradually il
crease IN complexity from the first fossil
species till the extinct kinds of the
period Immediately preceding our own.
In April the stays exhibit the first be-
ginnlngs OF the new years growth. A
paIr OF knobs show themselves about
the scar left by the burns of last au-
tumn's antlers, and the smooth dark
velvet that covers them gives hardly
any sign OF active life. With the warmer
weather, however, the knobs have be-
gun to bud more vigorously, and the
pulses III the velvet show clearly that
the arteries are busy at work building
up bopy layer on the new pair of Gags.
As long as tie bone continues to grow,
the SKIN inside The vevet remains warm
and richly supplied with blood, for of
coUrse the work of depositing the dense
material of the antler Is carried on by
tins vital covering, which acts TO the
core much as the delicate skin of bone
does to the hard mineral mass beneath
1t While the work of deI osition goes
on the stays are Tefy shy aud retiring,
keeping OFT OF the way as much as pos
slbie, ior any INJURY TO the velvet causes
them to bleed profusely. and also pre-
vents the due growth of the subiacent
antltr. As SOON as the horns have at
tanned their full growth, however, the
arteries III the velvet dIy up and the
skin becomes reduced to a mere papry
covering, which the stag proceeds to
rub OF against the ground or ON the
trunks OF trees. Once the core of bone
alone remsIns, lie begins to toss his
head. TO seek the hind, and to do battle
for them with his rIval stsgs. On the
Scotch hills much Larm has been done
to The development OF antleIs by the
foolish ana unsclentltic practice OF kill
ing off the finest heads, which leaves
only the less developed to perpesuate
tie species, so that our British stays
have seldom more than 10 or u tines;
hut on the continent, where nature is
allowed to have her own way to
greater extent, stsgs have been shot
with between 60 and 20 branches to
their lordly antlers.