Deer antler

“ Deer have large eye-pits, but no groin-pits; feet-pits in all four, or sometimes only in the hind feet. The female has four mammæ.
At the time of reproduction of the antlers a strong determination of blood to the head takes place, enlarging the vessels, and a fibro-cartilaginous substance is formed, which grows rapidly, and takes the form of the antler of the species. The horns in their early stage are soft and full of blood-vessels on the surface, covered with a delicate skin, with fine close-set hairs commonly called the velvet. ”

“ The antlers of the red deer are very complex. “In the spring of the year following its birth the antlers are nothing more than straight, conical, and unbranched ‘beams,’ the animal being then known as a ‘brocket.’ In the following spring the antler has, besides the ‘beam,’ a small branch from its base, directed forwards, known as the ‘brow antler’ ”

“ As a rule, the “beam” or main stem of the antler and its [412] branches or “tines” are cylindrical and tapering; but in some cases, as in the Moose (Alce) and the Fallow Deer (Dama) , the antler is very broad and flat and is then said to be “palmated.” Except in the Reindeer and Caribou (Rangifer) the female is without antlers.
In the skeleton there is little difference between the deer and the Cavicornia, but there are some differences in the teeth. ”

“ Antler is besides easily obtained, not only when the deer is killed for food, but by picking up shed antlers on the tundra, and is consequently employed for many purposes. The haft usually has a knob at the tip to keep the hand from slipping, and the grip is sometimes roughened with cross cuts or wound with thong. There are usually as many holes for the lashing as there are eyes in the head, though there are two holes when the head has only one large eye. ”

“ The weight of full-grown bucks ranges from 250 to 300 pounds, and specimens have been known to reach 325 pounds. The antlers of the Mule Deer are larger and handsomer than those of the white-tailed deer, and are much better poised on the head. Instead of dropping forward, they partake more of the set of an elk’s antlers, and many a “tenderfoot” hunter has mistaken a heavily-antlered Mule Deer for an elk. The antlers of a Mule Deer are easily distinguished from those of the white-tailed species by the two Y-shaped prongs on each antler. ”

“ He must account it nothing to lie half immersed for hours in a bog or burn, without even the trifling excitement of an occasional glimpse of an antler; he must be prepared to crawl up or rush down precipices, as the exigency of the case or the movements of the deer may require ”

“ It is, of course, easy for anyone to classify the flat antler as belonging to one species and the round to another; but the value of the determination depends upon the number of species living at the same time in the same place, possessed respectively of round and flattened antlers. In the pleistocene and prehistoric ages, there were four animals which had portions of their antlers flattened—the Reindeer, Irish Elk, true Elk, and Stag—to which, according to Dr. Jeitteles, must be added the Fallow Deer. ”

“ Whether this kind of antler belongs to a well-marked variety of Fallow Deer or to a closely-allied species, I will not offer an opinion. It seems, however, safer to follow Professors Lartet, Gaudry, and most of the naturalists since the days of Cuvier, in keeping the fossil separate from the living forms, none of which present, so far as I know, a similar variation of antler. ”

“ In the American Elk, and in the British Stag, or Red-deer, and in all other round-horned deer I ever saw, the main antlers rise erectly, with a slight backward curve, the brow antler and all the other tines springing from it anteriorly, and forming the true weapons for the animal’s defense.
The Cariboo, therefore, presents a curious combination of the round-horned and palmated-horned deer, in the first instance; and of the usual, and American, round-horn structure, in the second. ”

“ The first antler-bearing Deer which appears in the geological record is the Dicroceros elegans (Lartet) [3] of the Middle Miocene of Sansan and Simorre, in which the antler is composed of a simple fork springing close to the burr, and crowning the summit of a long and slender pedicle like that of the Muntjak. Similar antlers have been met with in the Canton of St. ”

“ It is found in prairies and open grounds, west of the Rocky Mountains, and but seldom in the woodlands. It is larger than the common deer, and its flesh is considered inferior; its eye is larger, and the hair coarse. The ears are very long, being half the length of the whole antler. It was first observed by the members of Lewis and Clarke’s expedition, and was described by Say.
Common Deer.—This species, sometimes called the Virginia Deer, is found throughout the United States, with such varieties in its size and coloring, as naturally arise from variety of climate. ”

“ That the deer is an intrusive immigrant, and that it has not yet been in South America long enough to change its mating season in accordance with the climate, as the birds—geologically doubtless very old residents—have changed their breeding season, is rendered probable by the fact that it conforms so exactly in the time of its antler growth to the universal rule which obtains in the great arctogeal realm, where deer of many species abound and where the fossil forms show that they have long existed. ”

“ Once in a while something does happen to the mother but in most cases she is not far away and will return to the fawn when the proper time comes.
General description: A rather large deer with large ears; antler tines pronged; tip of tail black. Female without antlers. Males shed their antlers sometime between December and April annually. Summer color tawny to yellowish brown with large patch of white on rump, throat white. In the winter they are dark gray instead of brownish. Males, total length 68 inches, height at shoulder 42 inches and weight 150 to 200 pounds for the average buck. ”

“ Antlers and horns are sometimes worked up into armchairs and two pairs of small deer antlers turned upside down and screwed to a square of board make the foundation of a nice stool. Hat, gun and rod racks of feet, antlers and heads in various combinations are mentioned elsewhere and occasionally some one attempts an electrolier of antlers, mounted either on the heads or separately. ”

“ These pits are dangerous traps; they are ten or fifteen feet deep, small at the mouth, but made to diverge in descent, so that it is impossible for anything to escape that once falls into their capacious maws. To add to their horror, at the bottom, elk and deer antlers that have been ground sharp at the points are set up so as to pierce any unfortunate man or beast they may chance to swallow up. ”

“ But as the female has usually no antlers, our expectations might be limited to the discovery of four times as many pairs of antlers as skeletons in the superficial deposits of the countries in which such deer have lived and died. The actual proportion of the fossil antlers of the great extinct species of British Pliocene deer (which antlers are proved by the form of their base to have been shed by the living animals) to the fossil bones of the same species, is somewhat greater than in the above calculation. ”

“ The true Deer have antlers (in the male) , which they shed every year. The males, and sometimes the females, have canine teeth in the upper jaw. The antlers are dermal bones, that is, are formed in the skin, and do not grow from the skull. They have two rudimentary digits above the hoofs.
The whole of this group, which we may call the Camel and Deer family, are almost wholly defenceless, the Giraffe the most so of all, and, excepting those which are useful in domestication, are threatened with extinction. ”

“ Indeed, no living deer shows such primitive spike-like antlers in the adult, and it is doubtful whether such a type is displayed by any known extinct form, although many have a simple fork. In the deer of the sambar group, where the antlers never advance beyond a three-tined type, the shedding is frequently, if not invariably, very irregular; but in the majority at least of the species with complex antlers the replacement is annual, the new appendages attaining their full development immediately before the pairing-season. ”

“ Now it is further true that each one of these types is represented today in the mature antlers of existing deer, from the small South American species with a simple spike, up to the wapiti and red deer carrying six or eight points, and still more significant is it that the whole story is recapitulated in the growth of each individual of the higher races. The earliest cervine animals known seem to have had no antlers at all, a stage to which the fawn of the year corresponds ”

“ In the mating season, there is fighting in many wild animal species between the largest and finest male individuals for the honor of overlordship in increasing and diffusing the species. These encounters are most noticeable in the various species of the deer family, because the fatal interlocking of antlers occasionally causes the death of both contestants. We have in our National Collection of Heads and Horns sets of interlocked antlers of moose, caribou, mule deer and white-tailed deer. ”

“ The fallow deer has palmated antlers—that is, they end in a broad expansion, which is divided into several points, and has been compared to a hand with its fingers. These antlers are not developed at all in the fawn ”

“ This evolution of antlers in the deer is typical of the increasing struggle of life. In order to protect themselves some animals grew horns and antlers, some highly specialized teeth and claws, and some learned to increase their speed and run from their enemies. ”

“ Of course, while his antlers are still growing, and are soft and tender, the elk cannot use them to fight another animal; so during that time he hides in the bushes. But as soon as his new antlers have become hard and strong, he is very brave again, and is ready to fight!
Does the elk fight much? He does! He fights most awfully when he has his new antlers. What he fights about, and with whom he fights, I shall tell you in another book.
There are a few other kinds of deer in America, but the funniest of them is called the mule deer, which lives along the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ The Stag throws his head back so that his antlers lie along each side and protect his body from many a bruise that might otherwise be inflicted by the branches as he rushes through the undergrowth. The antlers may be used with deadly effect in self-defence, and many a hound is killed by a Stag at bay. Their function appears to be mainly protective against carnivorous beasts; they are seldom if ever effective against those of their own kind.
The mating of the Red Deer, as we have indicated, takes place in the autumn ”

“ The horns of the cow, ox, sheep, antelope, and goat are permanent. If by any accident they are lost, they are not renewed; but the deer family shed their horns, which indeed, are not properly called horns, but antlers. Antlers are a horny growth, large and branching, divided into what are called tines. Up to a certain age these antlers grow, fall off, and are renewed every year, and there is no mammal peculiarity more wonderful than the rapid growth of these large frontal ornaments. In many of the deer species the male alone wears the antlers. ”

“ The coloration is chestnut in summer, bluish grey in winter. The antlers are of good size, and measure as much as 271⁄2 inches in length. As a sporting animal the white-tailed deer is not popular. Mr. Clive Phillipps-Wolley describes him as "an exasperating little beast." possessing every quality which a deer ought not to, from the sportsman's point of view. "His haunts are river-bottoms, in choking, blinding bush, and his habits are beastly. No one could ever expect to stalk a white-tail; if you want to get one, you must crawl." ”

“ Since large antlers, and especially so-called "record heads," of any species of deer command a price among those who desire to pose as sportsmen, and have not the strength or skill to hunt themselves, it has become a regular business for dealers to buy up unusual heads. The temptation to tamper with such a head and increase its size is very great, and heads passing through the hands of such dealers must be discarded as of little scientific value. A favorite device is to take a green head, force the antlers apart with a board and a wedge every few days during the winter. ”

“ The antlers, which are long and branching, and considerably palmated, are present in both sexes, although in the female they are more slender and less branched than in the males. In the latter they appear at a much earlier age than in any other species of deer, and Darwin conjectures that in this circumstance a key to their exceptional appearance in the female may be found. The reindeer has long been domesticated in Scandinavia, and is of indispensable import ance to the Lapland race, to whom it serves at once as a substitute for the horse, cow, sheep, and goat. ”

“ Peculiarly Neotropical are the little brockets, which hardly exceed a height of two feet at the shoulder, with simple spike-like antlers not more than three inches long; the genus, Mazama, has several species, one of which occurs as far north as the state of Puebla in Mexico. “The smallest of all deer is the Chilian pudu (Pudua pudu) , [181] a creature not much larger than a hare, with almost rudimentary antlers” (Lydekker) . Old World types of deer, such as the Wapiti, Moose and Caribou, of the Boreal and Transition zones of North America, are entirely absent from the Neotropical region. ”