ANTLER, O. Fr. _auntilor_, _antoiller_, or _andoiller_, derived from a Teutonic root; Anglo-Saxon _andwlit_; Frank. _antlutt_ or _antluzze_; Goth. _andawleiz_; O. Ger. _antliz_; face. Gaston Ph[oe]bus and Roy Modus and other old French authors almost invariably use _teste_, or head, when referring to a hart's antlers, but English writers did not observe time-hallowed terms of venery so rigorously, and our author frequently uses the jarring and, from every point of view, incorrect term "horns" when speaking of the hart's attire or head. The substance of deers' antlers is true bone, the proportion of their constituents differing but very slightly from ordinary bones. The latter, when in a healthy condition, consist of about one-third of animal matter or gelatine, and two-thirds of earthy matter, about six-sevenths of which is phosphate of lime and one-seventh carbonate of lime, with an appreciable trace of magnesia. The antlers of deer consist of about thirty-nine parts of animal matter and sixty-one parts of earthy matter of the same kind and proportion as is found in common bone. Later on, a more sportsmanlike regard for terms of venery is observable, and Turbervile in one of his few original passages impresses upon his fellow-sportsmen: "Note that when you speake of a harts hornes, you must terme them the Head and not the Hornes of a hart. And likewise of a bucke; but a Rowes hornes and a Gotes hornes are tollerable termes in Venery" (1611, p. 239). Up to the end of the seventeenth century it was customary when speaking of a stag's head to refer only to the tines "on top," or the "croches" or "troches," leaving unconsidered the brow, bez and trez tines, which were called the stag's "rights," and which every warrantable hart was supposed as a matter of course to possess. When referring to the number of tines a head bore, it was invariably the rule to use only even numbers, and to double the number of tines borne by the antler which had most. Thus, a stag with three on each top was a head of "twelve of the less" (or "lasse"); "twelve of the greater" when he had three and four on top, or, counting the rights, six and seven tines, or, as a modern Scotch stalker would call it, a thirteen-pointer. The extreme number of tines a hart was supposed to bear was thirty-two. BERCELET, barcelette, bercelette, is a corruption of the O. Fr. _berseret_, a hunting dog, dim. of _bersier_, a huntsman; in Latin, _bersarius_, French, _berser_, _bercer_, to hunt especially with the bow. _Bercel_, _biercel_, meant a butt or target. Italian, _bersaglio_, an archer's butt, whence _bersagliere_, archer or sharpshooter (Oxford, and Godefroy Dict.).