612 



THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



In the Indian black -buck (.4. lezoartica), which 

 belongs to another tribe of antelopes, the male is very 

 dark, almost black ; while the hornless female is fawn- 

 colored. We meet in this species, as Mr. Blyth informs 

 me, with an exactly similar series of facts, as in the 

 Port ax picta, namely, in the male periodically changing 

 color during the breeding-season, in the eifects of emascu- 

 lation on this change, and in the young of both sexes being 

 indistinguishable from each other. In the Antilope niger 

 the male is black, the female, as well as the young of both 

 sexes, being brown; in A. sing-sing the male is much 

 brighter-colored than the hornless female, and his chest 

 and belly are blacker; in the male A. caama the marks 

 and lines which occur on various parts of the body are 

 black, instead of brown as in the female; in the brindled 

 gnu (A. gorgon) " the colors of the male are nearly the 

 same as those of the female, only deeper and of a brighter 

 hue/' * Other analogous cases could be added. 



The Banteng bull (Bossondaicus) of the Malayan Archi- 

 pelago is almost black, with white legs and buttocks; the 

 cow is of a bright dun, as are the young males until about 

 the age of three years, when they rapidly change color. 

 The emasculated bull reverts to the color of the female. The 

 female Kemas goat is paler, and both it and the female Capra 

 agagrus are said to be more uniformly tinted than their 

 males. Deer rarely present any sexual differences in color. 

 Judge Caton. however, informs me that in the males of the 

 wapiti deer (Cervus canadensis) the heck, belly and legs 

 are much darker than in the female; but during the 

 winter the darker tints gradually fade away and disappear. 

 I may here mention that Judge Caton has in his park three 

 races of the Virginian deer which differ slightly in color, 

 but the differences are almost exclusively confined to the 

 blue winter or breeding coat; so that this case may be corn- 

 ley," in which there is a splendid drawing of the Oreas derbianus: 

 see the text on Tragelaphus. For the Cape eland (Oreas canna), see 

 Andrew Smith, " Zoology of S. Africa," pi. 41, 42. There are also 

 many of these antelopes in the Zoological Gardens. 



*6n the Ant. niger, see "Proc. Zool. Soc.," 1850, p. 133. With 

 respect to an allied species, in which there is an equal sexual differ- 

 ence in color, see Sir S. Baker, "The Albert Nyanza," 1866. vol. ii, 

 p. 627. For the A. sing-sing, Gray. "Cat. B. Mus.," p. 100. Des- 

 marest, "Mammalogie," p. 468, on' the A. caama, Andrew Smith, 

 " Zoology of S. Africa," on the gnu. 



