THE HAZARDS OF THE PAST 
tionary process. Thus there was a time when no 
animal had horns; then horns appeared. “In the 
great quadruped known as titanothere,” says Os- 
born, “rudiments of horns first arise independently 
at certain definite parts of the skull; they arise at 
first alike in both sexes, or asexually; then they be- 
come sexual, or chiefly characteristic of males; then 
they rapidly evolve in the males while being arrested 
in development in the females; finally, they become 
in some of the animals dominant characteristics to 
which all others bend.” Nature seems to throw out 
these new characters and then lets them take their 
chances in the clash of forces and tendencies that 
go on in the arena of life. If they serve a purpose or 
are an advantage, they remain; if not, they drop 
out. Nature feels her way. The horns proved of less 
advantage to the females than to the males; they 
seem a part of the plus or overflow of the male prin- 
ciple, like the beard in man — the badge of mas- 
culinity. The titanothere is traceable back to a 
hornless animal the size of a sheep, and it ended in 
_a horned quadruped nearly as large as an elephant. 
It flourished in Wyoming in early Tertiary times. 
Nature did not seem to know what to do with horns 
when she first got them. She played with them like 
a child with a new toy. Thus she gave two pairs to 
several species of mammals, one pair on the nose and 
one pair on the top of the skull — certainly an em- 
barrassment of weapons. 
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