Lesson 47 Horns

If we were to set about making a list of the horned animals we should find that nearly all of them belong to the order of "ruminants." Probably the first thing to strike us would be the great difference between the horns of the ox and the corresponding appendages of the stag. Both are horns, but they differ in structure as well as in their external appearance.

The bullock's horn is hollow, curved, broad at the base, and tapering to a point; it is very hard, tough, and elastic, and has a smooth, shiny appearance. It is really a hard, strong, protecting covering for a bony core, which grows out from the frontal bone of the skull. The core itself is part of the actual skull bone, and is enveloped with a very tender, sensitive skin containing a close network of nerves and blood-vessels.

The horny material of which this covering sheath is made is the same kind of substance as that which forms the claws of mammals, the talons and beaks of birds, and our own fingernails.

Oxen, sheep, goats, and antelopes have these hollow, horny horns. Some of the antelopes have straight horns, but in all the other members of the group the horns are more or less curved like those of the ox, and some are twisted. These hollow horns make their appearance early in the life of the animal, and continue to grow as long as it lives. They vary in size in different animals; in some cases they measure as much as 6 feet from tip to tip.

Certain antelopes of America shed their horns periodically, but none of the other animals do so, and hence, with this exception, we may describe them as permanent horns.

The rhinoceros has the same kind of horny horn, but instead of being hollow it is solid, and there is no inner core.

Passing next to the horns of the deer, we find at once that they are altogether different from these hollow horny horns. They consist of a number of spreading branches, and are usually called antlers in preference to horns.

If the antlers of the common stag and those of the fallow deer and reindeer be compared, it will be seen that in the former the branches are rounded like the branches of a tree, while in the latter they are flattened out.

These antlers are hard, solid bone, and not horny matter. They are parts of the frontal bone of the skull grown out, but without any external covering sheath of horny material. Antlers of this kind are common to all the deer family, but, with the exception of the reindeer, only the males have antlers. In every case the antlers are shed in the spring of each year, and new ones take their place. Hence these are sometimes called deciduous horns. During the first year there are no actual horns, but only a pair of short rough knobs, covered with a hairy skin. The horns make their appearance in the second year, and are then single, straight, and pointed. These fall in due course next spring, and the third year another pair, having two antlers or branches, take their place. The fourth year's growth have three antlers; the fifth have four; the sixth, five; the seventh, six. In the fully-grown deer the antlers are very large, thick, and wide-spreading, but the period of growth never exceeds ten or eleven weeks.

The true horny matter of the permanent horns is a very different substance from the bone of the antlers of the deer. A piece of cow's horn readily softens in boiling water, and becomes so plastic that it may be easily cut and moulded into various forms, and even welded together. The substance of the antlers is actual bone, resembling in almost every particular the ordinary bone in the body.

Each of these has its uses. The horny horns, and especially those of the ox family, are used for making combs, drinking-vessels, shoe-lifts, knife-handles, buttons, umbrella-tops, etc.

Buttons are usually made from the solid tips of the horns. They are first softened in boiling water, and then pressed into the required shape. Rams' horns are sometimes made into snuff-boxes in Scotland.

The antlers of the deer family are mainly employed in making handles for carving-knives and forks, pocketknives, and many varieties of ornamental articles.

England's annual imports of horns of all kinds average about 5000 tons, and are valued at about £160,000 sterling. Most of England's supplies come from India, South Africa, the East Indies, the United States, South America, and Australia.

British India and the Straits Settlements alone send to England's on an average 2500 tons of horns, mostly those of the ox and buffalo, and this is estimated to represent the slaughter of no less than two million head of these cattle annually.

Nearly one-fifth of England's total imports of ox and buffalo horns are used in the manufacture of combs; the annual value of horn combs manufactured in the country is said to reach £400,000 sterling. The cutlery works of Sheffield use up annually for knife-handles, etc., about 400 tons of foreign stag-horns, besides a probable 100 tons from England's own deer forests and those of the Continent.