298 MR. ALSTON ON FEMALE DEER WITH HORNS. [Mar. 18, 



In Germany, where the Roedeer is more plentiful than in this 

 country, many does with antlers have been recorded, no fewer than 

 forty instances being known to Dr. Altum l . Most of these were 

 barren animals, and the antlers were always of a more or less 

 abortive character, except in one case, in wbich the normal male form 

 was well reproduced ; but several were fertile, and were either with 

 young when they were killed, or had recently given birth to fawns. 

 The abnormal antlers appear to be always persistent, and to be per- 

 manently covered with the velvet. 



In America the same abnormality appears not to be very uncommon 

 in the Virginian Deer (Cariacus virginianus, Bodd.). Judge Caton 

 says that he has seen many accounts of does with small, simple, velvet- 

 clad antlers, and describes such a head in the National Museum at 

 Washington, in which the beams are about six inches long. He has 

 heard of a similar case of a doe killed in California, probably Cariacus 

 columbianus (Richardson) 2 ; and Mr. Dresser informs me that in New 

 Brunswick he once examined in the flesh a female Moose (Alces 

 machlis) with well-developed bifurcated antlers. 



In the Deer of the restricted genus Cervus, on the other hand, the 

 occurrence of antlered females seems to be extremely rare. In all 

 the voluminous literature of German woodcraft Dr. Altum has only 

 been able to find records of five cases of the abnormality in the Red 

 Deer {Cervus elaphus, Linn.), of which the latest dates from early in 

 the last century 3 . I have not been able to find any record of its 

 occurrence in the Fallow Deer, nor, in fact, in any other species of 

 Cervus, except the Sambur, C. aristotelis, Cuv., of which Mr. Vin- 

 cent Ball informs me that there is a hind with a single antler now 

 living in the Zoological Gardens at Calcutta. 



"We thus find, scanty as is the hitherto recorded evidence, that the 

 development of antlers in the female is a not very uncommon ab- 

 normality in the two best-known genera of Sir Victor Brooke's section 

 of Telemetacarpi (Capreolus and Cariacus), occurs in a third (Alces), 

 and is normal in a fourth (Rangi/er), while, as far as we know, it is 

 extremely rare in the Plesiometacarpi. As the former division is the 

 least specialized, these facts seem to me to indicate that the abnor- 

 malities are instances of atavism, and that the primeval Deer probably 

 possessed antlers in both sexes. I make this suggestion, however, with 

 all deference ; for the contrary view has been adopted by Mr. Darwin, 

 who holds that both the antlers of the Cervida and the horns of the 

 Jiovidce were primarily and essentially sexual weapons, first developed 

 in the males only. " When the males are provided with weapons 

 which in the female are absent, there can hardly be a doubt that 

 these serve for fighting with other males, and that they are acquired 

 through sexual selection, and were transmitted to the male sex 

 only" 4 . Of the Reindeer he says : — " We may conclude that the 

 possession of fairly well-developed horns by the female Reindeer is due 

 to the males having at first acquired them as weapons for fighting 

 with other males, and, secondarily, to their development from some 



1 Forstzoologie, i. p. 230. 2 Antelope and Deer of America, pp. 232, 233. 

 Forstzoologie, i. p. 211. * Descent of Man (2nd ed.), p. 502. 



