THE HAZARDS OF THE PAST 



tlonary process. Thus there was a time when no 

 animal had horns; then horns appeared. "In the 

 great quadruped known as titanothere," says Os- 

 born, "rudiments of horns first arise independently 

 at certain definite parts of the skull; they arise at 

 first ahke in both sexes, or asexually; then they be- 

 come sexual, or chiefly characteristic of males; then 

 they rapidly evolve in the males while being arrested 

 in development in the females; finally, they become 

 in some of the animals dominant characteristics to 

 which all others bend." Nature seems to throw out 

 these new characters and then lets them take their 

 chances in the clash of forces and tendencies that 

 go on in the arena of life. If they serve a purpose or 

 are an advantage, they remain; if not, they drop 

 out. Nature feels her way. The horns proved of less 

 advantage to the females than to the males; they 

 seem a part of the plus or overflow of the male prin- 

 ciple, like the beard in man — the badge of mas- 

 culinity. The titanothere is traceable back to a 

 hornless animal the size of a sheep, and it ended in 

 a horned quadruped nearly as large as an elephant. 

 It flourished in Wyoming in early Tertiary times. 

 Nature did not seem to know what to do with horns 

 when she first got them. She played with them like 

 a child with a new toy. Thus she gave two pairs to 

 several species of mammals, one pair on the nose and 

 one pair on the top of the skull — certainly an em- 

 barrassment of weapons. 



237 



