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Show 614 DR. J. MURIE ON THE PANOLIAN DEER. [June 23, the animal's death ; this, however, did not turn out to be the case. The morbid appearances were shortly as follows:-Intense congestion and thinning of tbe walls of the small intestines, these containing a great amount of flatus. Great intestines perfectly healthy, and loaded with normal faeces. All the other abdominal and tbe thoracic viscera were quite sound. The brain and the parts around the left horn-base, after careful scrutiny, yielded no appearances of disease or lesion. I considered death to have resulted from acute enteritis. The woodcut (fig. 1 B) represents the renewed antlers at the time of death, the animal then being probably over three years old. The right horn agrees pretty nearly with Blyth's figure (No. 15). The left has a more erect beam, and with only rudiments of terminal snags ; tbe brow-tyne is represented by two subequal snags. There is no distinct burr, this horn rising with a large base close to the skull. Length of right beam 26|, and of left 21 inches. Right brow-tyne 12| long. Inner snag of left brow-antler 6| inches, tip inwardly curved; outer snag 5| inches, and with a slight outward sweep. Remarks.-It appears to me a few legitimate deductions may be drawn from the case I have just related. 1. It proves that the pedicel of a Deer's horns and portion of the cranial bones when torn away at the period of shedding are not only repaired by a fresh irregular osseous mass, but redevelope thereupon a new horn. From the experience of others, I understand it would be doubtful, if horns were in an active growing state and such an accident were to happen, whether they would be renewed again. 2. But a minimum of blood was lost-showing that not only the vessels to the horn itself but also those of the forehead must have been in a contracted condition ; else greater haemorrhage would have resulted. 3. That in this Panolian Deer tbe horn of succession was malformed, the deviation consisting in an extra development of snag and alteration in direction-this abnormality, when uniform on both sides, (within certain limits) being considered by some naturalists of specific value. By such a character and nodulation of the superficies Dr. Gray separates his Panolia platyceros from his P. acuticornis = P. eldi. 4. That variation of the reproduced horn was probably coordinate with, or in fact due to, fissive growth of the blood-vessels. Hence it follows that a slightly altered blood supply produces corneous variability, this by inheritance producing the so-called varieties and ultimate species-i. e. where animals are specifically subdivided hy form of horns, as notoriously is the case among Deer. 5. This multiple reproduction of hornlets is possibly correlated with similar multifission of the tail of Batrachians and Fishes, which, as experiment has often shown, produce a double tail on the caudal appendage being severed. |