Chap. XVII.] LAW OF BATTLE. 233 



cial service to the female at this season, which includes the 

 larger proportion of the time during which she bears 

 horns. Nor is it probable that she can have inherited 

 horns from some ancient progenitor of the whole family 

 of deer, for, from the fact of the males alone of so many 

 species in all quarters of the globe possessing horns, we 

 may conclude that this was the primordial character of 

 the group. Hence it appears that horns must have been 

 transferred from the male to the female at a period sub- 

 sequent to the divergence of the various species from a 

 common stock ; but that this was not effected for the sake 

 of giving her any special advantage.® 



We know that the horns are developed at a most un- 

 usually early age in the reindeer ; but what the cause of 

 this may have been is not known. The effect, however, 

 has apparently been the transference of the horns to both 

 sexes. It is intelligible, on the hypothesis of pangenesis, 

 that a very slight change in the constitution of the male, 

 either in the tissues of the forehead or in the gemmules of 

 the horns, might lead to their early development ; and, as 

 the young of both sexes have nearly the same constitu- 

 tion before the period of reproduction, the horns, if devel- 

 oped at an eai'ly age in the male, would tend to be de- 

 veloped equally in both sexes. In support of this view, 

 we should bear in mind that the horns are always trans- 

 mitted through the female, and that she has a latent 

 capacity for their development, as we see in old or dis- 

 eased females.' Moreover the females of some other 



^ On the structure and shedding of the horns of the reindeer, Hoff- 

 berg, ' Amoenitates Acad.' vol. iv. 1*788, p. 149. See Richardson, 'Fauna 

 Bor. Americana,' p. 241, in regard to the American variety or species; 

 also Major W. Ross King, ' The Sportsman in Canada,' 1866, p. 80. 



'Isidore Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, 'Essais de Zoolog. Generale,' 1841, p. 

 513. Other masculine characters, besides the horns, are sometimes sim- 

 ilarly transferred to the female ; thus Mr. Boner, in speaking of an old 



