THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. VIII. 



No. VI.— JUNE, 1901. 



OK/XG-I^^-A^Xj .A.X?,TICXiES. 



1. — On the Evidence of the Transference of Secondary Sexual 

 Characters of Mabimals from Males to Females. 



By C. I. Forsyth Major, M.D., F.Z.S. 



WHEN Darwin stated in the first edition of the "Descent of 

 Man," "as probable that horns of all kinds, even when they 

 are equally developed in the two sexes, were primarily acquired by 

 the male in order to conquer other males, and have been transferred 

 more or less completely to the female," ' the " various facts " from 

 which he drew this inference did not include any palseontological 

 evidence. At the present day we are familiar with the notion that, 

 as regards the deer family, the oldest members known, from the 

 Oligocene, were absolutely devoid of antlers, and that the subsequent 

 phylogenetic evolution of the latter has a close parallel in their 

 ontogenetic development. 



Except in the case of the reindeer, fossil Cervidas cannot be expected 

 to throw any direct light on our special subject of inquiry, since 

 up to the present day the females of the great majority of Cervidas 

 are, as a rule, devoid of antlers. The generally received view is that 

 amongst recent Cervidce the females of the reindeer always have 

 antlers, and the females of other deer never have. 



According to a statement by Eversmann, quoted by A. Brandt," 

 the female wild reindeer in the Orenburg district are devoid of 

 antlers. With regard to the Cervidee generally, there is abundant 

 testimony, to be found amongst older writers especially, of antlers 

 occurring in females of Capreolus and Cervus elajjluis.^ Riitimeyer 

 states that traces of pedicles are never absent in the doe ; ^ and 

 Nitsche confirms that this is in fact the rule in old individuals.* 



1 Charles Darwin : " The Descent of Man and Selection iu relation to Sex," 

 1871, vol. ii, p. 248. 



- Eversmann: " Naturgesch. v. Orenburg," ii, p. 251. Cf. A. Brandt in 

 " Festschrift f. Rudolf Leuckart," 1892, p. 412. 



3 See the numerous bibliography, together with original observations, in A. W. 

 Otto, " Lelirb. d. pathol. Anatomic d. Menschen und der Thiere," 1830, i, p. 167 

 and note 18. 



* L. Riitimeyer: " Beitriige zu einer natilrl. Geschichte der Hirsche," i: 

 Abh. schweiz. palaeont. Ges., 1881, viii, p. 42. 



5 H. Nitsche : " Studien iiber Hirsche, 1898, i, pp. 23, 49, 50. 



DECADE IV. — VOL. VIII. — NO. YI. 10 



