571 



the latter in a more or less reduced tbnn and only in some of the 

 species (according to the well-known rules of monosexual trans- 

 gressional heredity), the resnll being that the horns now could 

 be used in both sexes as means of defence. 



As argnmenis in favour of this opinion may be cited: 



1. In Deer the antlei's are absent in all females except those 

 of the Reindeer, and precisely in this species a nseful application of 

 the horns, not connected with any sexual function, and alike for 

 both male and female may be conceived, viz. the digging up of 

 food from under the snow, though some authorities (e.g. Brkhm) 

 deny this function. 



2. Among Antilopes, besides genera in which both sexes are 

 horned, others occur in which only the male possesses these attributes, 

 and in the majority of cases the horns of the females are smaller 

 than those of the males. The latter moreover show a tendency to 

 hypertrophic growth, just as is the case with deei-, leading to unwield} 

 size or to sundry strange shapes (e.g. sci-ewlike contortions) which 

 seem to stand in direct contradiction with the requirements of 

 practical use. 



3. The same is the case with Cattle, Sheep and Goats, as shown 

 by the four-horned goat, or the excessive development of the horns 

 in the carbon and othei- buffaloes. 



4. Even in Giraffes, whose minute pedicles with their small os 

 cornu may probably be considered as rudiments of foi-merly bettei' 

 differentiated antlers (compare Ocapia and Sivatherium) the males 

 possess higher and stronger hornstumps than the females, and more- 

 over the unpaired nasal knob. In Ocapia on the other hand the 

 horns are primarily absent in the female, and the same was probably 

 the case during their whole life in those of Siva-, Hellado- and 

 Samotherium. 



5. The more original kinds of Ruminants: the Tragulidae and 

 Camelidae, are destitute of horns, and so were the oldest and 

 primitive extinct Artiodactyla (Pantolestidae, Anoplothei-idae) as well 

 as all Noninminantia amongst them. The oldest fossil deer likewise 

 did not yet possess antlers, as the muskdeer does up to this day, 

 though the miocene Palaeomeryx according to Rütimeyer and S('HI,osser 

 was already provided with them. Perhaps this might be considered 

 as an indication that the tendency to the formation of antlers arose 

 independently in the tribe of the Cervidae, but also as the mani- 

 festation of a far older hereditary inclination to the production of 

 bony frontal appendages of the male. This tendency then must have 

 been in abeyance in the tribe of the Artiodactyla in general ; in Deer 



