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Show 244 SEXUAL SELEC'riON: 1\iAMMALS. PAnT Jr. sheds his horns Juring tho winter, it is very improbahle that they can be of any special service to the .female at this season, which includes the larger proportiOn of the time durino· which she bears horn . Nor is it probable b . that she can have inherited horns from some anCient. progenitor of the whole family of deer, for, from the fact of the males alone of so many species in all quarters of the globe possessing horns, we may conclude that th~s was the primordial character of the group. Hence 1t appears that horns mu t have been transferred fron~ the male to the female at a period subsequent to the dlver< rence of the various species from a common stock; but ~hat this was not effected for the sake of giving her any special advantage.8 We know that the horns are developed at a most unusually early age in the reindeer; but what the cause of this may have been is not known. rrhe effect, however, has apparently been the transference of the horns to both sexes. It is intelligible on the hypothesis of pangenesis, that a very slight change in the constitution 0f the male, either in the tissues of the forehead or in the gemmules of the horns, might lead to their early development; and as the young of both sexes have nearly the same constitution before the period of reproduction, the horns, if developed at an early age in the male, would tend to be developed equally in both sexes. In support of this view, we should bear in mind that tbe horns are always transmitted through the female, and that she has a latent capacity for their development, as we see in old or diseased females.9 Moreover the females 8 On tho structure and shedding of the horns of the reindeer, Hoff. berg,' AmronitatcsAcnd.' vol. iv.l788, p.H!J. ~co Rich~rdson, 'Fa?na nor. Amcricann,' p. 241, in regard to the Amencan V!.mcty or specLCS; also Major W. Ross King, 'The Sportsman in Canada,' 1866, p. 80. o Isidore Geoffroy St.-Hill:tire, 'Essais de Zoolog .. Ocncmle,' 18H p. 513. Other masculine eharo.cters, besides the horns, are sometimes. <CHAP. XVH. LAW OF BAT'rL.E. 245 of some other species of deer either normally or occasionally exhibit rudiments of horns; thus the female of Oervulus moschatus has "bristly tufts, en<ling in a knob, " instead of a hom;" and " in most specimens of the "female Wapiti (Oe1·vus Canadensis) there is a sharp " bony protuberance in the place of the horn." 1° From these several considerations we may conclude that the possession of fairly well-developed horns by the female reindeer, is due to tho males having first acquired them as wea~ous for fighting with other males; and secondarily to thmr development from some unknown cause at an unusually early age in the males, and thei1· consequent transmission to both sexes. Turning to the sheath-horned ruminants: with antelopes a graduated series can be formed, beginning with the species, the females of which are completely destitute of horns--passing to those which have horns so small. as to bo almost rudimentary, as in Antilocapra Amencana-to _those which have fairly well-developed horns, but mamfestly smaller and thinner than in the m~le, and sometimes of a different shape/1 and endin(r with those in which both sexes have horns of equal siz:. As with the reindeer, so with antelopes there exists a relation between the period of the development of the horns aud their transmission to one or Loth sexes ; it similarly transfcn:cd ,to tile f~male; ~hus Mr. Boner, in speaking of an old female chamo1s ( Cbamms Ihmtmg in the Mountains of Bavaria' 1~60, 2nd edit. p. 363), says, " not only was the head very male-look" mg, but al~ng the back there was a ridge of long hair, usually to be "'found only m bucks.'' 10 On the Cervulus, Dr. Gray, 'Catalorrue of tho l\Iummo.lia in British Museum,' part ii~. p. 220. On the Ce~vus Canadensis or Wapiti. see lion. J. D. Caton, 'Ottawa Acad. of Nat. Sciences,' May, 1868, p. 9. 11 For instance the horns of tho female Ant. Euch01·e resemble those of a dbtinct species, viz. the Ant. Dorcas var. Carine, seo Desmarest "' l\lammalogie,' p. 455. ' |
