Chap. XVII.] LAW OF BATTLE. 239 



oppoiient ; but the Italian buffalo is said never to use his 

 horns, he gives a tremendous blow with his convex fore- 

 head, and then tramples on his fallen enemy with his 

 knees — an instinct which the common bull does not pos- 

 sess. 19 Hence a dog who pins a buffalo by the nose is im- 

 mediately crushed. We must, however, remember that 

 the Italian buffalo has long been domesticated, and it is 

 by no means certain that the wild parent-form had simi- 

 larly shaped horns. Mr. Bartlett informs me that when 

 a female Cape buffalo (JBubalus Gaffer) was turned into an 

 enclosure with a bull of the same species, she attacked 

 him, and he in return pushed her about with great vio- 

 lence. But it was manifest to Mr. Bartlett that had not 

 the bull shown dignified forbearance, he could easily have 

 killed her by a single lateral thrust with his immense 

 horns. The giraffe uses his short hair-covered horns, 

 which are rather longer in the male than in the female, in 

 a furious manner ; for with his long neck he swings his 

 head to either side, almost upside down, with such force, 

 that I have seen a hard plank deeply indented by a single 

 blow. 



With antelopes it is sometimes difficult to imagine 

 how they can possibly use their curiously-shaped horns ; 

 thus the spring-boc (Ant, euchore) has rather short up- 

 right horns, with the sharp points bent inward almost at 

 a right angle, so as to face each other ; Mr. Bartlett does 

 not know how they are used, but suggests that they 

 would inflict a fearful wound down each side of the face 

 of an antagonist. The slightly-curved horns of the Oryx 

 leucoryx (Fig. 61) are directed backward, and are of such 

 length that "their points reach beyond the middle of the 

 back, over which they stand in an almost parallel line. 

 Thus they seem singularly ill-fitted for fighting ; but Mr. 



19 M. E. M. Bailly, " Sur l'usage des Comes," etc., ' AnnaL des Sc. 

 Nat.' torn. \l 1824, p. 369. 



