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(Struggle for Existence)

Nor can I pass by without admiration the deer of Cornbury Park which before His Majesties wonderful restoration being (in part at least) turned into a cony-warren the deer upon it had all dwarf heads the most of them irregular as in Tab x, Fig 13, but if any of them were uniform as in Tab x, Fig 14, yet they were still far short of growth seldom exceeding 8 or 10 inches long though the deer themselves were well enough grown and warrantable; the two that bore these engraven heads being both of them two years a buck at least and in all other respects well enough liking which yet as soon as the warren was destroyed by the present proprietor the Earl of Clarendon, came again to have as fair branched heads as any deer whatever in the adjoyning forest. Which

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strange alterations I cannot guess to proceed from any other cause than the infection of the grass by the urin and crotizing of the conies which being hot and dry must needs abate the moisture of the deer which supplied matter for the fair heads wherewith before and since  they have been as well adorned as any of their kind.' Robert Plot's Nat. Hist. of Oxfordshire, 2nd ed. 1705, p. 194.

[2 sketches of the skulls of deer with antlers]

[Darwin annotation:] Barbuda deer with small horns

Reference:

Plot, Robert. 1705. The natural history of Oxfordshire, being an essay towards the natural history of England, with plates and a map. 2d ed. Oxford: Lichfield.