Every year in March the deer loses its antlers, and fresh ones
immediately begin to grow, which exceed in size those that have just
been lost. Few persons probably have been able to watch and observe the
habits of the animal after it has lost its antlers. It will, therefore,
be of interest to examine the accompanying drawings, by Mr. L. Beckmann,
one of them showing a deer while shedding its antlers, and the other
as the animal appears after losing them. In the first illustration the
animal has just lost one of its antlers, and fright and pain cause it
to throw its head upward and become disturbed and uneasy. The remaining
antler draws down one side of the head and is very inconvenient for the
animal. The remaining antler becomes soon detached from its base,
and the deer turns--as if ashamed of having lost its ornament and
weapon--lowers its head, and sorrowfully moves to the adjoining thicket,
where it hides. A friend once observed a deer losing its antlers, but
the circumstances were somewhat different. The animal was jumping over a
ditch, and as soon as it touched the further bank it jumped high in the
air, arched its back, bent its head to one side in the manner of an
animal that has been wounded, and then sadly approached the nearest
thicket, in the same manner as the artist has represented in the
accompanying picture. Both antlers dropped off and fell into the ditch.
[Illustration: METAMORPHOSIS OF DEER'S ANTLERS.--FIRST STAGE.]
Strong antlers are generally found together, but weak ones are lost at
intervals of two or three days. A few days after this loss the stumps
upon which the antlers rested are covered with a skin, which grows
upward very rapidly, and under which the fresh antlers are formed, so
that by the end of July the bucks have new and strong antlers, from
which they remove the fine hairy covering by rubbing them against young
trees. It is peculiar that the huntsman, who knows everything in regard
to deer, and has seventy-two signs by which he can tell whether a male
or female deer passes through the woods, does not know at what age the
deer gets its first antlers and how the antlers indicate the age of the
animal. Prof. Altum, in Eberswalde, has given some valuable information
in regard to the relation between the age of the deer and the forms of
their antlers, but in some respects he has not expressed himself very
clearly, and I think that my observations given in addition to his may
be of importance. When the animal is a year old--that is, in June--the
burrs of the antlers begin to form, and in July the animal has two
protuberances of the size of walnuts, from which the first branches of
the antlers rise; these branches having the length of a finger only, or
being even shorter, as shown at 1, in diagram, on p. 5481. After the
second year more branches are formed, which are considerably longer and
much rougher at the lower ends than the first. The third pair of antlers
is different from its predecessors, inasmuch as it has "roses," that is,
annular ridges around the bases of the horn, which latter are now bent
in the shape of a crescent. Either the antler has a single branch (Fig.
3, _a_), or besides the point it has another short end, which is a most
rare shape, and is known as a "fork" (Fig. 3, _b_), or it has two forks
(Fig. 3, _c_). In the following year the antlers take the form shown
in Fig. 4, and then follows the antler shown in Fig. 5, _a_, which
generally has "forks" in place of points, and is known as forked antler
in contradistinction to the point antler shown in Fig. 5, _b_, which
retains the shape of the antler, Fig. 4, but has additional or
intermediate prongs or branches. The huntsmen designate the antlers by
the number of ends or points on the two antlers. For instance, Fig. 4 is
a six-ender; Fig. 5 shows an eight-ender, etc.; and antlers have been
known to have as many as twenty-two ends. If the two antlers do not
have the same number of ends the number of ends on the larger antler
is multiplied by two and the word "odd" is placed before the word
designating the number of ends. For instance, if one antler has
three ends and the other four, the antler would be termed an "odd"
eight-ender. The sixth antler shown in Fig. 6 is a ten-ender, and
appears in two different forms, either with a fork at the upper end, as
shown in Fig. 6, _a_, or with a crown, as shown in Fig. 6, _b_. In Fig.
7 an antler is shown which the animal carries from its seventh year
until the month of March of its eighth year. From that time on the
crowns only increase and change. The increase in the number of points is
not always as regular as I have described it, for in years when food
is scarce and poor the antlers are weak and small, and when food is
plentiful and rich the antlers grow exceedingly large, and sometimes
skip an entire year's growth.--_Karl Brandt, in Leipziger lllustrirte
Zeitung_.
[Illustration: METAMORPHOSIS OF DEER'S ANTLERS.--SECOND STAGE.]
[Illustration]
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