584 't'HE DESCENT OP MAN. 



Although the horns of stags are efficient weapons, there 

 can, I think, be no doubt that a single point would 

 have been much more dangerous than a branched antler; 

 and Judge Caton, who has had large experience with deer, 

 fully concurs in this conclusion. Nor do the branching 

 horns, though highly important as a means of defense 

 against rival stags, appear perfectly well adapted for this 

 purpose, as they are liable to become interlocked. The sus- 

 picion has, therefore, crossed my mind that they may serve 

 m part as ornaments. That the branched antlers of stags 

 as well as the elegant lyrated horns of certain antelopes, 

 with their graceful double curvature (fig. 64), are orna- 

 mental in our eyes, no one will dispute. If, then, the 

 horns, like the splendid accouterments of the knights of 

 old, add to the noble appearance of stags and antelopes, 

 they may have been modified partly for this purpose, though 

 mainly for actual service in battle; but I have no evidence 

 in favor of this belief. 



An interesting case has lately been published, from which 

 it appears that the horns of a deer in one district in 

 the United States are now being modified through sexual 

 and natural selection. A writer in an excellent American 

 journal * says that he has hunted for the last twenty-one 

 years in the Adirondacks, where the Cervus virginianus 

 abounds. About fourteen years ago he first heard of spike- 

 Jiorn, hucks. These became from year to year more 

 common; about five years ago he shot one, and afterward 

 another, and now they are frequently killed. ^^ The spike- 

 horn differs greatly from the common antler of the C. vir- 

 ginianus. It consists of a single spike, more slender than 

 the antler, and. scarcely half so long, projecting forward 

 from the brow and terminating in a very sharp point. It 

 gives a considerable advantage to its possessor over the 

 common buck. Besides enabling him to run more swiftly 

 through the thick woods and underbrush (every hunter 

 knows that does and yearling bucks run much more rapidly 

 than the large bucks when armed with their cumbrous 

 antlers), the spike-horn is a more effective weapon than the 

 common antler. With this advantage the spike - horn 

 bucks are gaining upon the common bucks, and may, in 

 time, entirely supersede them in the Adirondacks. Un- 



*" The American Naturalist," Dec, 1869, p. 553. 



