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