342 SEXUAL SELECTION: MAMMALS. [Part II. 



elusion that their horns were more injurious than useful 

 to them ! But this author overlooks the pitched battles 

 between rival males. As I felt much perplexed about 

 the use or advantage of the branches, I applied to Mr. 

 McNeill of Colinsay, who has long and carefully observed 

 the habits of red-deer, and he informs me that he has never 

 seen some of the branches brought into action, but that 

 the brow-antlers, from inclining downward, are a great 

 protection to the forehead, and their points are likewise 

 used in attack. Sir Philip Egerton also informs me, in 

 regard both to red-deer and fallow-deer, that when they 

 fight they suddenly dash together, and getting their horns 

 fixed against each other's bodies a desperate struggle 

 ensues. When one is at last forced to yield and turn 

 round, the victor endeavors to plunge his brow-antlers 

 into his defeated foe. It thus appears that the upper 

 branches are used chiefly or exclusively for pushing and 

 fencing. Nevertheless, with some species the upper 

 branches are used as weapons of offence ; when a man 

 was attacked by a Wapiti deer ( Cervus Canadensis) in 

 Judge Caton's park in Ottawa, and several men tried to 

 rescue him, the stag " never raised his head from the 

 ground ; in fact he kept his face almost flat on the ground, 

 with his nose nearly between his forefeet, except when he 

 rolled his head to one side to take a new observation pre- 

 paratory to a plunge." In this position the terminal points 

 of the horns were directed against his adversaries. " In 

 rolling his head he necessarily raised it somewhat, because 

 his antlers were so long that he could not roll his head 

 without raising them on one side, while on the other side 

 they touched the ground." The stag by this procedure 

 gradually drove the party of rescuers backward, to a 



Bailly, "Surl'usage des Comes," 'Annales des Sc. Nat.' torn. ii. 1824, 

 p. 371. 



