FALLOW DEER, 7 



skull of another. Only one very abnormal 

 ruminant, the musk deer (which is not really 

 a deer at all, but a specialised aberrant de- 

 scendant of the old undifferentiated ancestral 

 type) has weapons of a different character 

 — a pair of curved tusks in the upper jaw, 

 used in the same way as those of the wild 

 boar. 



The historical development of antlers in 

 the deer tribe is very marked. While the 

 group was still young and dominant, with the 

 open grass-clad tertiary plains all before it, 

 and with plenty of elbow-room to spread and 

 multiply, it had as yet no weapons of offence 

 of any kind. But as the races grew thicker 

 and more numerous, and as space failed the 

 younger generations — for deer, like men, are 

 subject to the inexorable logic of the Malthu- 

 sians — the fathers of the herd began to fight 

 among themselves for the possession of the 

 does, and only the strongest survived to 

 become the parents of future deerkind 

 Butting naturally produces hard bosses or 



