Deer
a family of the ruminants distinguished chiefly by the nature of the horns or antlers, which, with the single exception of the reindeer, are borne by the males only. They are bony throughout, are annually shed and reproduced at the breeding season increasing each time in size and the number of branches till, in the old males of some species, they attain an enormous size. The antlers are carried on the frontal bone, DEERFIELD At and are produced by a process not unlike that by which injuries of osseous structures are made good in man. first they are covered with a sensitive skin or "velvet"; but as development proceeds this skin dries up and peels off; a bony ridge or "burr" being formed on the antler just above its base of attachment to the frontal bone. When fully developed the antlers consist of a main stem or "beam," carrying one or more branches or "tynes." When first produced, in the second year after birth, the antler consists only of the "beam," the animal being then termed a "brocket."
The next year a basal branch or "browtyne" is developed; it is then termed a "spayed"; and in the following year a second branch or "tres-tyne," directed forward, appears above the former, the hinder portion of the beam constituting the "royal." Should the antler develop further, it is by the more or less complete branching of these tynes; the "royal-tyne" in particular, being very liable to become sub-divided in successive years. The musk-deer and the water-deer of China have no horns. Deer FALLOW DEER -- are very generally distributed, but none have yet been discovered in either Australia or South Africa. The largest living form is the true elk (Alces palmatus) or moose, while the Indian muntjacs are among the smallest, the chevroatins being now placed in a group by themselves. Except the reindeer (Cervus farandus), no member of the group has been completely domesticated. In the fossil state deer are not found earlier than in the Pliocene period, while the best known extinct form, the Irish deer, or Irish elk, occurs in peat bogs or cave deposits.