MAMMALS. 577 



in order to conquer other males, and have been transferred 

 more or less completely to the female. 



The effects of castration deserve notice, as throwing light on 

 this same point. Stags after the operation never renew their 

 horns. The male reindeer, however, must be excepted, as 

 after castration he does renew them. This fact, as well as 

 the possession of horns by both sexes, seems at first to prove 

 that the horns in this species do not constitute a sexual 

 character; * but as they are developed at a very early age, 

 before the sexes differ in constitution, it is not surprising 

 that they should be unaffected by castration, even if they 

 were aboriginally acquired by the male. With sheep 

 both sexes properly bear horns ; and I am informed 

 that with Welsh sheep the horns of the males are con- 

 siderably reduced by castration ; but the degree depends 

 much on the age at which the operation is performed, as 

 is likewise the case with other animals. Merino rams have 

 large horns, while the ewes, '*^ generally speaking, are with- 

 out horns;" and in this breed castration seems to produce 

 a somewhat greater effect, so that if performed at an early 

 age the horns " remain almost undeveloped. "f On the 

 Guinea coast there is a breed in which the females never 

 bear horns, and, as Mr. Winwood Reade informs me, the 

 rams after castration are quite destitute of them. With 

 cattle the horns of the males are much altered by castration; 

 for, instead of being short and thick, they become longer 

 than those of the cow, but otherwise resemble them. The 

 Antilope hezoartica offers a somewhat analogous case; the 

 males have long straight spiral horns nearly parallel to each 

 other, and directed backward; the females occasionally bear 

 horns, but these when present are of a very different shape, 

 for they are not spiral, and spreading widely bend round 

 with the points forward. Now it is a remarkable fact that 

 in the castrated male, as Mr. Blyth informs me, the horns 

 are of the same peculiar shape as in the female, but longer 



*This is the conclusion of Seidlitz, "Die Darwinsche Theorie," 

 1871, p. 47. 



f I am much obliged to Prof. Victor Cams for having made in- 

 quiries for me in Saxony on this subject. H. von Xathusius 

 (" Viehzucht," 1872, p. 64) says that the horns of sheep castrated at 

 an early period, either altogether disappear or remain as mere rudi- 

 ments; but I do not know whether he refers to merinos or to ordinary 

 breeds. 



