The
saying is that no man has ever seen the animal's left horn; that the
creature keeps it out of sight because it possesses some medicinal
property.
In their first year stags grow no horns, but only an excrescence
indicating where horns will be, this excrescence being short and
thick. In their second year they grow their horns for the first
time, straight in shape, like pegs for hanging clothes on; and on this
account they have an appropriate nickname. In the third year the
antlers are bifurcate; in the fourth year they grow trifurcate; and so
they go on increasing in complexity until the creature is six years
old: after this they grow their horns without any specific
differentiation, so that you cannot by observation of them tell the
animal's age. But the patriarchs of the herd may be told chiefly by
two signs; in the first place they have few teeth or none at all, and,
in the second place, they have ceased to grow the pointed tips to
their antlers. The forward-pointing tips of the growing horns (that is
to say the brow antlers), with which the animal meets attack, are
technically termed its 'defenders'; with these the patriarchs are
unprovided, and their antlers merely grow straight upwards.
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