'.t 



504 The Descent of Man. Part II, 



sarly age; but what the cause of this may be is not known. 

 The effect has apparently been the transference of the horns to 

 both sexes. We should bear in mind that horns are always 

 transmitted through the female, and that she has a latent 

 capacity for their development, as we see in old or diseased 

 females. 9 Moreover the females of some other species of deer 

 exhibit, either normally or occasionally, rudiments of horns ; thus 

 the female of Cervidus moschatus has " bristly tufts, ending in a 

 " knob, instead of a horn ;" and " in most specimens of the 



female wapiti (Cervus canadensis) there is a sharp bony pro- 

 u tuberance in the place of the horn." 10 From these several 

 considerations we may conclude that the possession of fairly 

 well-developed horns by the female reindeer, is due to the males 

 having first acquired them as weapons for fighting with other 

 males; and secondarily to their development from some un- 

 known cause at an unusually early age in the males, and their 

 consequent transference to both sexes. 



Turning to the sheath-horned ruminants: with antelopes a 

 graduated series can be formed, beginning with species, the 

 females of which are completely destitute of horns — passing on 

 to those which have horns so small as to be almost rudimentary, 

 (as with the Antilocapra americana, in which species they are 

 present in only one out of four or five females 11 ) — to those which 

 have fairly developed horns, but manifestly smaller and thinner 

 than in the male and sometimes of a different shape, 12 — and 

 ending with those in which both sexes have horns of equal size. 

 As with the reindeer, so with antelopes there exists, as pre- 

 viously shewn, a relation between the period of the development 

 of the horns and their transmission to one or both sexes ; it is 

 therefore probable that their presence or absence in the females 

 of some species, and their more or less perfect condition in the 

 females of other species, depends, not on their being of any 

 special use, but simply in inheritance. It accords with this 



9 Isidore Geofifroy St. Hilaire, ' Catalogue of Mammalia in the 



' Essais de Zoolog. Generale,' 1841, British Museum,' part. iii. p. 220. 



p. 513. Othe v masculine characters, On the Genus canadensis or wapiti 



besides the horns, are sometimes see Hon. J. D. Caton, ' Ottawa Acad, 



similarly transferred to the female ; of Nat. Sciences,' May, 1868, p. 9. 

 thus Mr. Boner, in speaking of an " lam indebted to Dr. Canfiell, 



old female chamois (' Chamois for this information, see also his 



Hunting in the Mountains of Ba- paper in'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.,' 18(6, 



varia,' 1860, 2nd edit. p. 363), says, p. 105. 



" not only was the head very male- 12 For instance the horns of the 



v looking, but along the back there female Ant. euchore resemble those 



" was a ridge of long hair, usually of a distinct species, viz. the Ant. 



" to be found only in bucks." dorcas var. Corine, see Desmarest, 



^ On the Cervulus, Dr, Gray, ' Mammalogie,' p. 455. 



