576 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



horns; and in some breeds, for instance, in the sheep of 

 North Wales, though both sexes are properly horned, tlie 

 ewes are very liable to be hornless. I have been informed 

 by a trustworthy witness, who purposely inspected a flock 

 of these same sheep during the lambing season, that the 

 horns at birth are generally more fully developed in the male 

 than in the female. Mr. ,^. Peel crossed his Lonk sheep, 

 both sexes of which always bear horns, with hornless Lei- 

 cesters and hornless Shropshire Downs; and the result was 

 that the male offspring had their horns considerably 

 reduced, while the females were wholly destitute of them. 

 These several facts indicate that, with sheep, the horns are 

 a much less firmly fixed character in the females than in the 

 males; and this leads us to look at the horns as properly of 

 masculine origin. 



With the adult musk-ox ( Ovibos moschatus) the horns 

 of the male are larger than those of the female, and in the 

 latter the bases do not touch.** In regard to ordinary 

 cattle Mr. Blyth remarks: '' In most of the wild bovine 

 animals the horns are both longer and thicker in the bull 

 than in the cow, and in the cowbanteng {Bos sondaicus) 

 the horns are remarkably small, and inclined much back- 

 ward. In the domestic races of catte, both of the humped 

 and humpless types, the horns are short and thick in the 

 bull, longer and more slender in the cow and ox; and in 

 the Indian buffalo, they are shorter and thicker in the bull, 

 longer and more slender in the cow. In the wild gaour {B. 

 gaurus) the horns are mostly both longer and thicker in 

 the bull than in the cow.^'f I^^'- Forsyth Major also 

 informs me that a fossil skull, believed to be that of the 

 female Bos estruscus, has been found in Val d^Arno, 

 which is wholly without horns. In the RMnoceros simus, 

 as I may add, the horns of the female are generally longer 

 but less powerful than in the male; and in some other 

 species of rhinoceros they are said to be shorter in the 

 female. % From these various facts we may infer as probable 

 that horns of all kinds, even when they are equally devel- 

 oped in the two sexes, were primarily acquired by the male 



* Richardson, " Fauna Bor. Americana," p. 278. 

 f " Land and Water," 1867, p. 346. 



^Sir Andrew Smith, "Zoology of S. Africa," pi. xix. Owen, 

 " Anatomy of Vertebrates," vol. iii, p. 624. 



