Chap. XVII. LAW OF BATTLE. 249 



in attacking the tiger ; according to Bruce, he scores 

 the trunks of trees until they can be easily thrown 

 down, and he likewise thus extracts the farinaceous 

 cores of palms ; in Africa he often uses one tusk, this 

 being always the same, to probe the ground and thus 

 to ascertain whether it will bear his weight. The 

 common bull defends the herd with his horns ; and 

 the elk in Sweden has been known, according to Lloyd, 

 to strike a wolf dead with a single blow of his great 

 horns. Many similar facts could be given. One of the 

 most curious secondary uses to which the horns of any 

 animal are occasionally put, is that observed by Captain 

 Button ^^ with the wild goat (Capra mgagrus) of the 

 Himalayas, and as it is said with the ibex, namely, that 

 when the male accidentally falls from a height he 

 bends inwards his head, and, by alighting on his mas- 

 sive horns, breaks the shock. The female cannot thus 

 use her horns, which are smaller, but from her more 

 quiet disposition she does not so much need this strange 

 kind of shield. 



Each male animal uses his weapons in his own pecu- 

 liar fashion. The common ram makes a charge and 

 butts with such force with the bases of his horns, that I 

 have seen a powerful man knocked over as easily as a 

 child. Goats and certain species of sheep, for instance 

 the Ovis cycloceros of Afghanistan,^^ rear on their hind 

 legs, and then not only butt, but " make a cut down 

 "and a jerk up, with the ribbed front of their scimitar- 

 " shaped horn, as with a sabre. When the 0. cycloceros 

 " attacked a large domestic ram, who was a noted 

 "bruiser, he conquered him by the sheer novelty of his 



^7 ' Calcutta Journal of Nat. Hist.' vol. ii. 1843, p. 526. 



18 Mr. Blyth, in 'Land and Water,' March, 1867, p. 134, on the 

 authority of Capt. Hutton and others. For the wild Pembrokeshire 

 goats see the ' Field,' 1869, p. 150. 



