MAMMALS— LAW OF BATTLE. 499 



is a surprising fact that they are so poorly developed, or quite 

 absent in the females of so many animals. With female deer 

 the development during each recurrent season of great branching 

 horns, and vyith female elephants the development of immense 

 tusks, would be a great waste of vital power, supposing that they 

 were of no use to the females. Consequently, they would have 

 tended to be eliminated in the female through natural selection; 

 that is, if the successive variations were limited in their transmis- 

 sion to the female sex, for otherwise the weapons of the males 

 would have been injuriously affected, and this would have been a 

 greater evil. On the whole, and from the consideration of the fol- 

 lowing facts, it seems probable that when the various weapons dif- 

 fer in the two sexes, this has generally depended on the kind of 

 transmission which has prevailed. 



As the reindeer is the one species in the whole family of Deer, 

 in which the female is furnished with horns, though they axe some- 

 what smaller, thinner, and less branched than in the male, it might 

 naturally be thought that, at least in this case, they must be of 

 some special service to her. The female retains her horns from 

 the time when they are fully developed, namely, in September, 

 throughout the winter until April or May, when she brings forth 

 her young. Mr. Crotch made particular enquiries for me in Nor- 

 way, and it appears that the females at this season conceal them- 

 selves for about a fortnight in order to bring forth their young, 

 and then reappear, generally hornless. In Novia Scotia however, as 

 I hear from Mr. H. Reeks, the female sometimes retains her horns 

 longer. The male on the other hand casts his horns much earlier, 

 towards the end of November. As both sexes have the same re- 

 quirements and follow the same habits of life, and as the male Is 

 destitute of horns during the winter, it is improbable that they 

 can be of any special service to the female during this season, 

 which includes the larger part of the time during which she is 

 horned. Nor is it probable that she can have inherited horns 

 from some ancient progenitor of the family of deer, for, from the 

 fact of the females of so many species in all quarters of the globe 

 not having horns, we may conclude that this was the primordial 

 character of the group." 



The horns of the reindeer are developed at a most unusually 

 early age; but what the cause of this may be is not known. The 

 effect has apparently been the transference of the horns to both 

 sexes. We should bear in mind that horns are always transmitted 

 through the female, and that she has a latent capacity for their de- 



» On the structure and shedding of the horns of the reindeer, HofE- 

 berg, 'Amoenltates Acad.' vol. iv. 1788, p. 149. See Richardson, 'Fauna 

 Bor. Americana,' p. 241, in regard to the American variety or species; 

 also Major W. Ross King, 'The Sportsman in Canada,' 1866, p. 80. 



