MAMMALS— LAW OP BATTLE. 497 



All male animals which are furnished with special weapons 

 for fighting, are well known to engage in fierce tattles. The cour- 

 age and the desperate conflicts of stags have often been described; 

 their skeletons have been found in various parts of the world, with 

 the horns inextricably locked together, showing how miserably 

 the victor and vanquished had perished." No animal in the world 

 is so dangerous as an elephant in must. Lord Tankerville has 

 given me a graphic description of the battles between the wild 

 bulls in Chillingham Park, the descendants, degenerated in size 

 but not in courage, of the gigantic Bos primigenius. In 1861 sev- 

 eral contended for mastery; and it was observed that two of the 

 younger bulls attacked in concert the old leader of the herd, 

 overthrew and disabled him, so that he was believed by the 

 keepers to be lying mortally wounded in a neighboring wood. 

 But a few days afterwards one of the young bulls approached the 

 wood alone; and then the "monarch of the chase," who had been 

 lashing himself up for vengeance, came out and, in a short Ixme, 

 killed his antagonist. He then quietly joined the herd, and long 

 held undisputed sway. Admiral Sir J. B. Sulivan informs me 

 that, when he lived in the Falkland Islands, he imported a young 

 English stallion, which frequented the hills near Port William 

 with eight mares. On these hills there were two wild stallions, 

 each with a small tr'oop of mares; "and it is certain that these 

 "stallions would never have approached each other without fight- 

 "ing. Both had tried singly to fight the English horse and drive 

 "away his mares, but had failed. One day they came in together 

 "and attacked him. This was seen by the capitan who had charge 

 "of the horses, and who, on riding to the spot, found one of the 

 "two stallions engaged with the English horse, whilst the other 

 "was driving away the mares, and had already separated four from 

 "the rest. The capitan settled the matter by driving the whole 

 "party into the corral, for the wild stallions would not leave the 

 "mares." 



Male animals which are provided with efficient cutting or tear- 

 ing teeth for the ordinary purposes of life, such as the carnivora, 

 insectivora, and rodents, are seldom furnished with weapons 

 especially adapted for fighting with their rivals. The case is 

 very different with the males of many other animals. "We see 

 this in the horns of stags and of certain kinds of antelopes in 



Birds of Sweden,' 1S67, p. 412; also Pennant. On the sperm-whale, see 

 Mr. J. H. Thompson, in 'Proc. Zool. Soc.' 1867, p. 246. 



3 See Scrope ('Art of Deer-stalking-,' p. 17) on the locking- of the 

 horns with the Cervus elaphus. Richardson, in 'Fauna Bor. Ameri- 

 cana,' 1S29, p. 252, says that the wapiti, moose, and rein-deer have 

 been found thus locked together. Sir A. Smith found at the Cape of 

 Good Hope the skeletons of two gnus in the same condition. 



