Chap. XVII.] LAW OF BATTLE. 243 



distance of 150 or 200 feet ; and the attacked man was 

 killed. 23 



Although the horns of stags are efficient weapons, there 

 can, I think, be no doubt that a single point would have 

 been much more dangerous than a branched antler ; and 

 Judge Caton, who has had large experience with deer, 

 fully concurs in this conclusion. Nor do the branching 

 horns, though highly important as a means of defence 

 against rival stags, appear perfectly well adapted for this 

 purpose, as they are liable to become interlocked. The 

 suspicion has therefore crossed my mind that they may 

 serve partly as ornaments. That the branched antlers of 

 stags, as well as the elegant lyrated horns of certain ante- 

 lopes, with their graceful double curvature (Fig. 62), are 

 ornamental in our eyes, no one will dispute. If, then, the 

 horns, like the splendid accoutrements of the knights of old, 

 add to the noble appearance of stags and anteloj3es, they 

 may have been partly modified for this purpose, though 

 mainly for actual service in battle ; but I have no evidence 

 in favor of this belief. 



An interesting case has lately been published, from 

 which it appears that the horns of a deer in one district 

 in the United States are now being modified through 

 sexual and natural selection. A writer in an excellent 

 American journal 23 says that he has hunted for the last 

 twenty-one years in the Adirondacks, where the Cervus 

 Virginianus abounds. About fourteen years ago he first 

 heard of spike-horn bucks. These became from year to 

 year more common ; about five years ago he shot one, and 

 subsequently another, and now they are frequently killed. 

 " The spike-horn differs greatly from the common antler 

 of the C. Virginianus. It consists of a single spike, more 



as See a most interesting account in the Appendix to Hon. J, D. 

 Caton's paper, as above quoted. 



85 The American Naturalist,' Dec. 1869, p. 552, 



