Zoology. — " Androgenic orujin of Hoiiis aiul Ant/ers." By Prof. 

 J. F. VAN Bemmri.kn. 



(Communicated in llie meeting of September 2i>, 1918). 



Ill Ills excellent wofk : "die Saujj,etiei'e". Max Webkk gives as 

 his 0[)inioii about the origin of the cephalic armament of numerous 

 Ungulates, that horns and antlers originally started in both sexes 

 as defensi\e weapons against enemies, but later on more and 

 more came to be used as instruments of offence by the males in 

 their fights for the females, and so either have grown an exclusive 

 attribute of the male sex, or at least have des'eloped much more 

 strongly than in the female sex. 



In this instance thei-efore VVkbkk evidently shares the opinion 

 pronounced by Tandi.kr and Gross in their |)a|)er: Die biologischen 

 Grundlagen der sekundaren Geschlechlschaiaktere, where they say: 

 "All secondary sexual features were originally specific features, 

 pro|)erties therefore, characteristic of a certain species, even of a 

 whole order of Vertebrates, without their primarily having any 

 connection with the genital sjjliere." 



In their commentary on this proposition they remark: "Hitherto 

 in the morphology of the sexual characteiistics too little attention has 

 been paid to the (piestion, how much of them is peculiar not for the sex, 

 but for the species." As a special example they cite the case of the 

 horns of Cavicornia, "which do not constitute a sexual characteristic 

 in themselves, but only in their shape, which differs for males and 

 females, whereas on the contrary it is identical in masculine and 

 feminine castrates." 



"The same is the case with the hairiness in man. We have 

 been able to show that such an eminently secondary sexual feature 

 of the male sex, as the beard, is also found in old castrates, but 

 there in form and extension resembles that of old women."' 



According to Tandi,er and Gross the question should not be 

 formulated: "Is an organ a secondary sexual feature", but: "How 

 much in the development of an organ is specific, how much sexual." 



Though this assertion might be granted, yet I believe to be justified 

 in opposing to it another view : viz. that the evolution has been 

 just the reverse; the cephalic armament arising in males as a meians 

 of attack in their duels for the females, and afterwards passing to 



