62 THE COURTSHIP OF ANIMALS 



Having regard to the fact that so many of the females 

 among the hollow-horned ruminants have acquired horns, 

 it is somewhat remarkable that in the Reindeer alone 

 among the deer are these weapons normally possessed 

 by the female. The gradual transference to the female 

 of features which were originally secondary sexual 

 characters in the male is an occurrence which is met 

 with in every group of animals. In writing " The Infancy 

 of Animals " I gave a number of instances of this kind. 

 But the case of the Reindeer affords a more than usually 

 striking illustration of this curious sequence ; and this 

 because rudiments of antlers are to be met with among 

 the females in several different species of Deer to-day. 

 They have been found in the females of both Roe- and 

 Red-deer, though such cases are rarely met with. As 

 a rule this assumption of the male secondary sexual 

 characters by the female occurs only in very aged animals, 

 or as one of the sequelae of diseased ovaries and conse- 

 quent sterility. But at least one instance is on record 

 of a doe Roe-deer which possessed small antlers while 

 pregnant. Thus, then, we gain a further insight into 

 the process by which the female slowly assumes the out- 

 ward attributes of the male ; that is to say, the secondary 

 sexual characters appear first in the male, and as seasonal 

 characters. Sooner or later they become permanently 

 established. By the time they have become firmly fixed 

 in the male, and apparently not till then, they appear 

 in a dilute form during senility, or in consequence of 

 ovarian disease, in the female. Having once started, 

 however, they appear earlier and earlier in the life-history 

 of succeeding generations of females, and at last in the 

 juvenile stages of both sexes. 



The hollow-horned ruminants, which must now be 



