AT DAGGERS DRAWN 6i 



But these apart, individual peculiarities are constant, 

 reappearing with more or less exactness each year. 



In contemplating these facts one asks : What are the 

 underlying factors of this variability ? What is the 

 significance of the branching ? What end is attained by 

 the annual shedding ? That the antlers constitute very 

 effective weapons of offence there can be no doubt, and 

 one is inclined to regard the branching as the outcome of 

 natural selection, on the assumption that branched antlers 

 would be less deadly than lance-like weapons. It would 

 perhaps be tempting to accept this interpretation as all 

 sufficient were it not for the evidence afforded by the 

 hollow-horned ruminants. The Oryx and the Kudu, for 

 example, are lance-bearers, and therefore show conclusively 

 that stags similarly armed might well have continued to 

 survive in spite of the foils which the " tines " provide. 

 Darwin, long since, guardedly suggested that while these 

 weapons primarily served for offensive purposes, their 

 elaborate systems of branching might have been brought 

 about by sexual selection. That is to say, the extreme 

 beauty of the weapons may excite the admiration of the 

 females as well as our own. Granting this, he inferred 

 they might have played an important part in elaborating 

 the branching by constantly displaying a preference to 

 mate with those males possessed of the largest and most 

 branched antlers. But there are many and serious 

 objections to this suggestion, and the most important 

 of all is the fact that the female is allowed no choice in 

 the selection of her lord and master. We can, then, only 

 regard the antlers of deer as another instance of the 

 survival of a " fortuitous " but inherent variation, which 

 survived because, whatever the defects thereof, they 

 proved advantageous in the struggle for existence. 



