Dr. C. I. Fors//th Major — Characters of Mammals. 245 



to point out that in the earliest known — Pliocene — representatives 

 of bovine animals, part, at any rate, of the females were devoid of 

 horns, whereas, as stated before, the females of all the wild recent 

 species, without exception, have acquired them. The occurrence of 

 hornless forms in domestic races has been explained by Riitimeyer 

 as a reversion.^ 



Suidce. — The male weapons of Suidaj are the tusks. Stehlin has 

 recently shown that the male Potamochoerus provincialis (Gerv.) from 

 the Lower Pliocene of Montpellier was already provided with equally 

 strong developed canines as the recent species. In the female fossil 

 form they are about equally developed as in Sus scrofa."^ Some 

 years ago I figured on two plates male and female skulls of 

 recent species of Potamochoerus,^ from which it can be seen that in 

 the Malagasy and East African Potamochceri the canines of the 

 females are almost equal in size and shape to those of the males. 

 The same occurs in the case of the Bornean Sus barhatns,^ and, to 

 judge from a skull described and figui'ed by Rolleston,^ may occur 

 also in the female of Sus andamanensis. 



In the West African Potamochoerus, according to Stehlin's 

 observation, the canines of the female are weaker than in the eastern 

 species." 



Stehlin has strongly insisted upon the importance of this instance 

 of transmission of male sexual characters to the female, in Potamo- 

 choerus. "Dieselbe ist in doppelter Hinsicht von allergrostem 

 Interesse. Einmal darum weil durch sie im allerletzten Abschnitt 

 der Erdgeschichte nochmals ein evidenter Fortschritt gegeniiber dem 

 Pliocaen erzielt wird, sodann aber auch in rein morphologischer 

 Hinsicht, insofern als mit ihrem Eintreten ein viJllig neuer, bis 

 dahin unbetretener Weg in der Umformung und Weiterbildung der 

 ganzen Species betreten wird." ^ (" It is of the greatest interest, 

 firstly, because by means of this transmission there is again an 

 evident progress in the last chapter of the earth's history, as compared 

 with the Pliocene ; secondly, from a purely morphological point of 

 view, because by it a hitherto completely new and untrodden road 

 in the transformation and progression of the whole species is now 

 opened.") 



In our own species the modern aspirations of women are, to all 

 appearances, the incipient signs of the same natural law. Physical 

 and mental characters of man, originally acquired in the struggles of 

 the males, are apparently being slowly transferred to women. They 

 only require time for their full evolution. 



^ Op. cit., ]}. 173. 



- H. G. Stehliu, " Uber die Geschiclite d. Suiden-Gebisses " : Abh. sch-weiz. 

 palaeont. Ges., 1899, xxvi, pp. 256, 257. 



^ Proc. Zool. Soc. Loudon, 1897, pis. xxv, xxvi. 



■* Stehlin : op. cit., xxvii, p. 466. 



^ Trans. Linn. Soc. London, 1876, p. 286, pi. xli, fig. 3. 



* I.e., xxvi, pp. 255, 256. 



'' Abh. schweiz. palaeont. Ges., 1900, xxvii, p. 466. 



