6 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE, 



Darwin thinks, or by use and wont, as Mrl 

 Herbert Spencer rather believes (with morel 

 probability, as It seems to my humble judg.| 

 ment), aided in any case by natural selection 

 almost all the ruminants grew at last to have 

 horns or antlers of one kind or another. 

 But these weapons of rivalry — for they are 

 all but useless against other species — differ 

 greatly in their structure, and therefore in 

 their origin, between race and race. All that 

 is constant is the presence of some kind of 

 offensive butting instrument upon the fore- 

 head. In the bison and ox tribe, including 

 the antelopes and goats, the weapons take 

 the form of real horns — that is to say, of 

 hollow permanent dermal processes ; in the 

 deer tribe they appear as antlers — that is to 

 say, as deciduous bony, not horny, structures ; 

 and in the giraffe they exist in the shape of 

 permanent bosses of the skull, covered with 

 hair and skin, but used very fiercely in com- 

 bat, even in Regent's Park, where one giraffe 

 once actually drove his horn clean into the 



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