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American Elk, or Wapiti, antlers full-grown.
(Copyright, 1904, by New York Zoölogical Society.)

“in the velvet,” as the hunters term it, a most critical period for the owner, who seems to realize it, for he is careful to avoid contact with anything liable to injure them. Should an accident happen and the skin get broken or the antler disfigured, it might result in the elk’s bleeding to death, or in his carrying a deformed antler until the following February. Through a process of nature the blood-vessels that have fed the antlers are shut off about the middle of July, and then they begin to harden. A few weeks later the elk may be seen rubbing them against trees or thrashing them about in the brush while endeavoring to rid then of the velvet, and in a few days it hangs in shreds and soon disappears entirely, The elk is now lord of the forest, and is ready to combat with his rivals or enemies.J. Alden Loring

Professor W. T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoölogical Park, has kindly given permission for the use of the copyrighted photographs in this article. In his “American Natural History” is a calendar of the elk’s shedding its antlers.

The king of mollusks lives in the Indian and South Pacific oceans. He attains to a weight of five hundred pounds, and the shell is of the bivalve kind, and the shape is about the same as that of our common fresh-water mussel. The gigantic Tridacna is the largest mollusk known to have lived on the earth since the Silurian Age. It is found on the bottom of the shallow parts of the ocean, and the large individuals have no longer the power to move about. They lie on one side, and all about them the corals build up until King Tridacna is sometimes found in a well-like hole in the coral formation. From the known rate of coral growth, the age of the mollusk can be approximately determined. Some are certainly more than one hundred years old, This king has a small domain, but in it he is in undoubted control. Pearl-divers have lost their lives by unknowingly stepping into the shell of a tridacna.