MAMMALS— LAW OF BATTLE. 509 



"crowding the antlered deer from the region they inhabit." A 

 critic has well objected to this account by asking, why, if the 

 simple horns are now so advantageous, were the branched antlers 

 of the parent-form ever developed? To this I can only answer 

 by remarking, that a new mode of attack with new weapons might 

 be a great advantage, as shown by the case of the Ovis cycloceros, 

 who thus conquered a domestic ram famous for his fighting power. 

 Though the branched antlers of a stag are well adapted for fight- 

 ing with his rivals, and though it might be an advantage to the 

 prong-horned variety slowly to acquire long and branched horns, 

 if he had to fight only with others of the same kind, yet it by no 

 means follows that branched horns would be the best fitted for 

 conquering a foe differently armed. In the foregoing case of the 

 Oryx leucoryx, it is almost certain that the victory would rest 

 with an antelope having short horns, and who therefore did not 

 need to kneel down, though an oryx might profit by having still 

 longer horns, if he fought only with his proper rivals. 



Male quadrupeds, which are furnished with tusks, use them in 

 various ways, as in the case of horns. The boar strikes laterally 

 and upwards; the musk-deer downwards with serious effect.^' The 

 walrus, though having so short a neck and so unwieldy a body, 

 "can strike either upwards, or downwards, or sideways, with 

 "equal dexterity."^' I was informed by the late Dr. Falconer, that 

 the Indian elephant fights in a different manner according to the 

 position and curvature of his tusks. When they are directed for- 

 wards and upwards he is able to fiing a tiger to a great distance — 

 it is said to even thirty feet; when they are short and turned down- 

 wards he endeavors suddenly to pin the tiger to the ground and, 

 in consequence, is dangerous to the rider, who is liable to be 

 jerked off the howdah.^" 



Very few male quadrupeds possess weapons of two distinct 

 kinds specially adapted for fighting with rival males. The male 

 muntjac-deer (Cervulus), however, offers an exception, as he is 

 provided with horns and exserted canine teeth. But we may infer 

 from what follows that one form of weapon has often been re- 

 placed in the course of ages by another. With ruminants the de- 

 velopment of horns generally stands in an inverse relation with 

 that of even moderately developed canine teeth. Thus camels, 

 guanacoes, chevrotains, and musk-deer, are hornless, and they 

 have eflicient canines; th^se teeth being "always of smaller size 

 "in the females than in the males." The Camelidse have, in ad- 

 dition to their true canines, a pair of canine-shaped incisors in 



=» Pallas, 'Spioilegia Zoologica," faso. xiii. 1779, p. 18. 

 ™ Lamont, 'Seasons with the Sea-Horses,' 1861, p. 141. 

 "> See, also. Corse ('Philosoph. Transact.' 1799, p. 212) on the manner 

 In which the short-tusked Mooknah variety attacks other elephants. 



