284 SEXUAL selection: mammals. PartIL 



But with most kinds of monkeys the various tufts of 

 hair about the face and head are alike in both sexes. 



The males of various members of tlie Ox family 

 (Bovidse), and of certain antelopes, are furnished with 

 a dewlap, or great fold of skin on the neck, which is 

 much less developed in the female. 



Now, wdiat must we conclude with respect to such 

 sexual differences as these ? No one will pretend that 

 the beards of certain male-goats, or the dewlap of the 

 bull, or the crests of hair along the backs of certain 

 male antelopes, are of any direct or ordinary use to 

 them. It is possible that the immense beard of the 

 male Pithecia, and the large beard of the male Orang, 

 may protect their throats when fighting ; for the keepers 

 in the Zoological Gardens inform me that many monkeys 

 attack each other by the throat : but it is not probable 

 that the beard has been developed for a distinct 

 purpose from that which the whiskers, moustache, 

 and other tufts of hair on the face serve ; and no one 

 will suppose that these are useful as a protection. Must 

 we attribute to mere purposeless variability in the male 

 all these appendages of hair or skin ? It cannot be de- 

 nied that this is possible ; for with many domesticated 

 quadrupeds, certain characters, apparently not derived 

 tb. rough reversion from any wild parent-form, have ap- 

 peared in, and are confined to, the males, or are more 

 largely developed in them than in the females, — for in- 

 stance the hump in the male zebu-cattle of India, the 

 tail in fat-tailed rams, the arched outline of the forehead 

 in the males of several breeds of sheep, the mane in the 

 ram of an African breed, and, lastly, the mane, long 

 hairs on the hinder legs, and the dewlap in the male 

 alone of the Berbura goat.^^ The mane which occurs in 



'^ See the chapters on tliese several animals in vol. i. of my ' Vari- 

 ation of Animals under Domestication ;' also vol. ii. p. 73 ; also chap. xx. 



