296 BRITISH MAMMALS 



These bands are very characteristic of the early white markings 

 of Ungulates. The adult roe is unspotted, but young roes 

 when first born are fully spotted with white, and have these 

 white half-circles on the throat. The spots fade during the first 

 year of the roe's life, and the patches of white on the throat 

 only recur (more or less marked, sometimes very faintly) in the 

 winter coat of the adult animal. 



As in all deer, there is a prominent tuft of hair covering the 

 gland on the hind legs just below the hock. The female roe 

 is hornless except in abnormal cases, wherein, as happens so often 

 among vertebrates, when the female loses her breeding powers 

 she assumes something of the characteristics of the male. Under 

 these conditions the female may produce an aborted antler. 

 Mr. J. G. Millais, however (who in his British 'Deer and their 

 Horns has produced a classic work on the subject), quotes a 

 German writer in the Fields who asserts that female roe deer 

 may produce antlers without being either unsexed or barren. 

 He alludes to many cases in which does with horns were prolific 

 and dropped and suckled fawns. This is interesting as showing 

 how such a condition as the reindeer could be brought about, 

 wherein the female now invariably grows antlers. These would 

 begin as sports, as quite exceptional instances, such as they are 

 in the roe, and gradually, if circumstances (such as the protection 

 of the young) rendered it necessary, would become universal. 

 The most primitive types of cattle (now extinct) only produced 

 horns in the male, and this is the condition of most antelopes ; 

 but in modern cattle, in two genera among the Tragelaphs (the 

 eland and the bongo), in the sheep and goats, gazelles, oryxes, 

 and hartebeests, the female is always horned. 



The antlers in the male roebuck vary considerably in length, 

 girth, and number of points, not only as between the two species 

 (those of Europe and Siberia), but also between Scottish and 

 English examples, existing and fossil. The average roebuck's 

 horn is as depicted in the drawing on p. 295. Other types 

 are illustrated on p. 297. In some roe deer the tubercles 

 of bone which appear on the lower half of the antler become 



