• 



Ciiap. XVn.] LAW OF BATTLE. 235 



some species, and their more or less perfect condition in 

 the females of other species, depend, not on their being 

 of some special nse, but simply on the form of inheritance 

 which has prevailed. It accords with this view that even 

 in the same restricted genus both sexes of some species, 

 and the males alone of other species, are thus provided. 

 It is a remarkable fact that, although the females of Anti- 

 lope bezoartica are normally destitute of horns, Mr. Blyth 

 has seen no less than three females thus furnished ; and 

 there was no reason to suppose that they were old or dis- 

 eased. The males of this species have long, straight, 

 spirated horns, nearly parallel to each other, and directed 

 backward. Those of the female, when present, are very 

 different in shape, for they are not spirated, and, spread- 

 ing widely, bend round, so that their points are directed 

 forward. It is a still more remarkable fact that in the 

 castrated male, as Mr. Blyth informs me, the horns are of 

 the same peculiar shape as in the female, but longer and 

 thicker. In all cases the differences between the horns of 

 the males and females, and of castrated and entire males, 

 probably depend on various causes — on the more or less 

 complete transference of male characters to the females — 

 on the former state of the progenitors of the species — and 

 partly, perhaps, on the horns being differently nourished, 

 in nearly the same manner as the spurs of the domestic 

 cock, when inserted into the comb or other parts of the 

 body, assume various abnormal forms from being differ- 

 ently nourished. 



In all the wild species of goats and sheep the horns are 

 larger in the male than in the female, and are sometimes 

 quite absent in the latter. 12 In several domestic breeds 

 of the sheep and goat, the males alone are furnished with 

 horns ; and it is a significant fact that, in one such breed 

 of sheep on the Guinea coast, the horns are not devel 



18 Gray, 'Catalogue Mamm. Brit. Mua.' part iii. 1852, p. 1G0. 



