MAMMALS. 581 



length that their points reach beyond the middle of the 

 back, over which they extend in almost parallel lines. 

 Thus they seem singularly ill-fitted for fighting ; but 

 Mr. Bartlett informs me that when two of these animals 

 preprare for battle they kneel down, with their heads 

 between their fore legs, and in this attitude the horns 

 stand nearly parallel and close to the ground, with the 

 points directed forward and a little upward. The combat- 

 ants then gradually approach each other, and each endeav- 

 ors to get the upturned points under the body of the other; 

 if one succeeds in doing this, he suddenly springs up, 

 throwing up his head at the same time, and can thus 

 wound or perhaps even transfix his antagonist. Both ani- 

 mals always kneel down, so as to guard as far as possible 

 against this maneuver. It has been recorded that one of 

 these antelopes has used his horns with effect even against 

 a lion; yet, from being forced to place his head between 

 the fore legs in order to bring the points of the horns for- 

 ward, he would generally be under a great disadvantage 

 when attacked by any other animal. It is, therefore, not 

 probable that the horns have been modified into their 

 present great length and peculiar position as a protection 

 against beasts of prey. We can, however, see that as soon 

 as some ancient male progenitor of the Oryx acquired mod- 

 erately long horns, directed a little backward, he would be 

 compelled, in his battles with rival males, to bend his head 

 somewhat inward or downward, as is now done by certain 

 stags; and it is not improbable that he might have acquired 

 the habit of at first occasionally and afterward of regularly 

 kneeling down. In this case it is almost certain that the 

 males which possessed the longest horns would have had a 

 great advantage over others with shorter horns; and then 

 the horns would gradually have been rendered longer 

 and longer, through sexual selection, until they acquired 

 their present extraordinary length and position. 



With stags of many kinds the branches of the horns 

 offer a curious case of difficulty, for certainly a single 

 straight point would inflict a much more serious wound 

 than several diverging ones. In Sir Philip Egerton's 

 museum there is a horn of the red deer {Cervus elaphus) 

 thirty inches in length with '^ not fewer than fifteen snags 

 or branches;" and at Moritzburg there is still preserved a 

 pair of antlers of a red deer, shot in 1699 by Frederick I, 



