United States or Poland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The rifle flashed a tine flew, splintered by the bullet, from the brow antler, not an inch above the eye. "Give him the other!" shouted Archer. "Give him the other barrel!" But Frank shook his head spitefully, and dropped the muzzle of his piece. "By thunder! then, he's forgot his bullets and hadn't nothen to load up agen, when he missed the first time!"
Human tactics in those days, in all serious fighting, were the tactics of the pack. Prey that turned at bay they gathered around and rushed. Ugh-lomi felt the rush coming, and hurling the antler at Uya, turned about and fled. When he halted to look back from the shadow of the thicket, he found only three of his pursuers had followed him across the river, and they were going back again.
In this case we cannot assert that the development of the antler takes place during the active state of the testes. The antlers are fully developed and the velvet is shed at the commencement of the rutting season, and development of the antlers takes place between the beginning of the year and the month of August or September.
This in the most probable explanation, not only of the occasional occurrence of hornless individual stags, but of the differences between the antlers of different species, for there is no reason to believe that the special character of the antler in each species is adapted to a special mode of fighting in each species.
Rolf's first shot had hit the antler near the base, breaking it, except for the skin on one side, and had stunned the buck. The second shot had broken a hind leg. The scratching places he had made were efforts to regain the use of this limb, and at one of them the deer had fallen and parted the rag of skin by which the antler hung.
I am not aware of any authentic instances in Mammals, and the supposition that in stags reduction or abnormality of one antler may be the result of removal or injury to the testis of one side, or the opposite, have been completely disproved by experiments in which unilateral castration has been carried out without any effect on the antlers at all.
On the right hand, and near by them, came the men swift and heavy, with bearded Uya, antler in hand, leading them; and on the left, scattered as one scatters corn, yellow dashes among the fern and grass, ran Wau and the women; and even the little children from the shallow had joined the chase. The two parties converged upon them. Off they went, with Eudena ahead.
An hour later, as the Buck was nosing for beechnuts in the snow, a rifle cracked and a bullet went zipping by and carried off the very tip of his left antler. He dropped his white flag and was off like a shot. Chase a wounded deer, and he will run for miles; leave him alone, and if he is badly hurt he will soon lie down. The chances are that he will never get up again.
And while Eudena was still among the silvery branches and Ugh-lomi still in the water for the antler had encumbered him Wau came up against the sky on the opposite bank, and the smiting-stone, thrown cunningly, took the side of Eudena's knee. She struggled to the top and fell.
Then, without looking round, reached up, took a cap from the antler of a stag's head high up on the wall, stuck it on the back of his head; swung round, and went out through the porch, whistling like a blackbird. "Jim Airth," said Myra to herself, as she moved slowly on; "Jim Airth of London. What an address!
Word Of The Day