Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1887 — Horns of Elks. [ARTICLE]

Horns of Elks.

Every hunter among the mountains of the Olympic range where elk abounds knows that the elk “sheds its horns,” as they are commonly called, every year; that the new antlers grow rapidly and are at first covered with a skin on which is a soft growth called velvet. While they are in their first growth and before the velvet is rubbed off the antlers are filled with bloodvessels, and are considered by old hunters as excellent eating. My old friend, Peter Fisher of Quilleute, Clalam County, formerly a mighty hunter of elk, has often assured me that “elk horns in the velvet are just like marrow.” Other famous and successful elk-hunters of Dungeness, such as Weir, Sutherland, Merrill, Sol Thompson, and a score more, have assured me of the same fact. Gradually the antlers harden, commencing at the base, and when sufficiently matured the velvet is rubbed off by the animal, and the antlers, at first white, change to the rich brown with which every one is familiar who has seen a “pair of elk horns.” These antlers are seldom dropped at the same time. The animal may knock off one among brush and then move away to another place and cast the other. These soon get buried among the vegetation where they have fallen and in a short time disappear. As they are considered of little value it is but seldom a hunter will take the trouble to bring one out of the woods when they may by chance be observed.— Portland Oregonian.