MAMMALS. 58? 



in their manner of fighting, often (but not in the horse) 

 caused by the development of new weapons. 



Tusks and horns are manifestly of high importance to 

 their possessors, for their development consumes much 

 organized matter. A single tusk of the Asiatic elephant 

 one of the extinct woolly species and of the African ele- 

 phant have been known to weigh respectively one hundred 

 and fifty, one hundred and sixty and one hundred and 

 eighty pounds; and even greater weights have been given 

 by some authors.* With deer, in which the horns are peri- 

 odically renewed, the drain on the constitution must be 

 greater; the horns, for instance, of the moose weigh from 

 fifty to sixty pounds, and those of the extinct Irish elk 

 from sixty to seventy pounds the skull of the latter 

 weighing on an average only five pounds and a quarter. 

 Although the horns are not periodically renewed in sheep, 

 yet their development, in the opinion of many agricultur- 

 ists, entails a sensible loss to the breeder. Stags, more- 

 over, in escaping from beasts of prey are loaded with an 

 additional weight for the race, and are greatly retarded in 

 passing through a woody country. The moose, for in- 

 stance, with horns extending five and a half feet from tip 

 to tip, although so skillful in their use that lie will not 

 touch or break a twig when walking quietly, cannot act so 

 dexterously while rushing away from a pack of wolves. 

 " During his progress he holds his nose up so as to lay the 

 horns horizontally back; and in this attitude cannot see 

 the ground distinctly/'} The tips of the horns of the 

 great Irish elk were actually eight feet apart! While the 

 horns are covered with velvet, which lasts with red deer 

 for about twelve weeks, they are extremely sensitive to a 

 blow; so that in Germany the stags at this time somewhat 

 2hange their habits, and, avoiding dense forests, frequent 

 young woods and low thickets. J These facts remind us 

 that male birds have acquired ornamental plumes at the 



* Emerson Tennent, "Ceylon," 1859, vol. ii, p. 275; Owen, 

 " British Fossil Mammals," 1846, p. 245. 



f Richardsom, "Fauna Bor. Americana," on the moose. Alces pal- 

 mata, pp. 236, 237; on the expanse of the horns, " Land and Water," 

 1869, p. 143. See also Owen, " Briiish Fossil Mammals," on the 

 Irish elk, pp. 447, 455. 



% " Forest Creatures," by C. Boner, 1861, p. 60. 



