gour, and are
as beautiful as they are swift. They are spread all over the globe,
except Australia, and Central and Southern Africa; their place in the
latter continent being supplied by giraffes and antelopes. They leave
the higher mountains to goats, live on moderate elevations, but delight
most in wide, open countries. The fissures, or what are called
lachrymals, exist in most of them; they are clefts below the eyes, which
bear the name of tear-ducts, but their use is not yet understood. They
would not be so much developed as they are in many, unless they bore
strongly upon the animal's economy; but they do not communicate with the
nose, nor are they, in any way, connected with respiration. They are
certainly in relation with glands, because they secrete a greasy fluid,
more abundant at some times than at others, when the edges are much
swollen; and the animals often touch objects with them, stretching them
wide open, doing so, when they are under excitement of any kind.

The muzzles of some deer are nearly flat, and destitute of hair; in
others, they are covered with hair, and the upper lip is prehensile.

Only the male deer have horns, or antlers, as they are called, which
they shed every year; and, up to a certain age, at every renewal, they
increase in size and number of branches. They are placed on a bony pad
upon the forehead, which is covered with skin; and in the second year of
their age, this skin swells; blood rushes towards the pads, their
arteries increase, and rapidly deposit bony matter, the antlers begin to
form, the skin increases with them, and continues to cover them, and the
large arteries which it carries with it make furrows upon the bony
matter, which always remain. So thick and soft is the pile of hair which
protects the skin, that it deserves, and has received, the name of
velvet. When the antlers have attained their yearly size, the arteries
begin to deposit a rough ring of bone round the edges of the pad, which
increases till it stops their passage; so that, deprived of its natural
nourishment, the velvet shrivels up, dries, and peels off; a process
which the deer hastens by rubbing his antlers against trees. The latter
are then hard and serviceable, for had they been used and wounded, when
their covering was so full of blood, the shock would have sent a rush of
it back to the brain, and probably have killed the deer. Before I
understood this arrangement, I have seen these animals with wound