218 DR. H, GADOW ON THE EVOLUTION [Mar. 18, 



life of the owner. Although full of grace and beavity, antlers are 

 morphologically very faulty structures, as wastef ully contrived as 

 the shedding of the thovisands of teeth of Sharks and Crocodiles. 

 The long duration of the growth of the antlers, their soft and 

 highly sensitive condition during this time, is even a distinct 

 trouble, not to say danger, a circumstance which shows clearly 

 that these organs are not primarily weapons to be used against 

 other species. 



II a. A side issvxe from II. Epichondrotic growths prepon- 

 derant, with multiple and broadened bases. Ossification 

 delayed but still proceeding from base. Cranial exostoses 

 or pedicles correspondingly reduced. These weapons with 

 an increasing tendency of intraperiosteal growth reached 

 a large size in width and length, and remained permanent 

 structures. The tips of the orbital and posterior pair of 

 weapons may have been covered with thickening epiderm, 

 more or less hairy ; the bulk of the growth was perma- 

 nently covered with the unaltered hairy skin. It is 

 possible that this protecting cover and the tips of the 

 bony core were worn off without impairing the fighting 

 use of these massive structures, which need not die off 

 thanks to the remaining velvet, or (even if this was 

 ultimately lost) thanks to the unimpaired vascular supply 

 from the interior of the broadened base. Creatures thus 

 armed reached their culmination in the huge Sivatherium 

 and Brahmatherium. (Text-fig. 25, II a, p. 216.) 



Here we have to confess the existence of a painfvxl gap and a 

 vagueness in connecting this type II a with others of the main 

 line. This difficulty will remain until fossil ancestors of these 

 creatures are fotmd. That they form a side issue is obvious enough. 

 So far as the few actually known genera are concerned, they 

 are of the latest Miocene, perhaps of the lowest Pliocene date, 

 anyhow considerably younger than bona fide Cervinse which we 

 can trace back into Lower Miocene. In this respect, and by the 

 morphological agreement between the stalked posterior antlers of 

 BrahTndtherium, with pedicle and antler of an early Stag, we are 

 justified in looking upon this type II a as a side-branch of the 

 main type II. On the other hand, the prevalence of multiple 

 outgrowth, facial, orbital, parietal, and generically variable, might 

 rightly be urged as a primitive feature, resembling in this respect 

 type I, so that the Sivatherium type would form a side issue 

 somewhere between I and II. However, it must be borne in 

 mind that multiple pairs of such weapons crop up pathologically 

 in recent Cervidte, and normally even in the Antilopine Tetra- 

 cercts — facts which nobody can possibly consider as primary. 

 Consequently the multiple armaments of the Progiraffine crea- 

 tures are not absolutely art indication of their great phyletic age 

 and low position. ■ z ; . ■ - 



