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So is it with this calamity: it does not touch me; something which I fancied was a part of me, which could not be torn away without tearing me nor enlarged without enriching me, falls off from me and leaves no scar. It was caducous. I grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real nature.

Furthermore, the horns or rather antlers of the deer are caducous, shedding annually; while those of the antelopes are persistent, remaining throughout the life-time of the animal as with goats, sheep, and oxen.

In the yearlings appear two knobs, about an inch in length; in two-year-olds, these knobs have become spikes a foot high; in the third year they begin to palmate, and antlers rise along their edges; and so on, until the seventh year, when they become fully developed. They are annually caducous, however, as with the common deer, so that these immense appendages are the growth of a few weeks!

Among this fossil wood Heer made out the cypress, the silver pine, the poplar, the birch, and some dicotyledons with caducous leaves.

He is exceedingly well formed and graceful; his horns are not so large as those of the stag, but, like his, they are annually caducous, falling off in the winter and returning in the spring. They are rounded below, but in the upper part slightly flattened or palmated. The antlers do not rise upward, but protrude forward over the brow in a threatening manner.