5o6 The Descent of Man. Takt JL 



are said to be shorter in the female.'' From these various facta 

 we may infer as probable that horns of all kinds, even when they 

 are equally developed in the two sexes, were primarily acquired 

 by the male in order to conquer other males, and have been 

 transferred more or less completely to the female. 



The effects of castration deserve notice, as throwing light on 

 this same point. Stags after the operation never renew their 

 horns. The male reindeer, however, must be excepted,, as after 

 castration he does renew them. This fact, as well as the pos- 

 session of horns by both sexes, seems at first to prove that the 

 horns in this species do not constitute a sexual character;" but 

 as they are developed at a very early age, before the sexes 

 differ in constitution, it is not surprising that they should be 

 unaffected by castration, even if they were aboriginally acquired 

 by the male. With sheep both sexes properly bear horns ; and 

 I am informed that with Welch sheep the horns of the males are 

 considerably reduced by castration; but the degree depends 

 much on the age at which the operation is performed, as is like- 

 wise the case with other animals. Merino rams have large horns, 

 whilst the ewes " generally speaking are without horns ;" and in 

 this breed, castration seems to produce a somewhat greater 

 efteet, so that if performed at an early age the horns " remain 

 " almost undeveloped."" On the Guinea coast there is a breed 

 in which the females never bear horns, and, as Mr. Winwood 

 Eeade informs me, the rams after castration are quite desti- 

 tute of them. With cattle, the horns of the males are much 

 altered by castration; for instead of being short and thick, 

 they become longer than those of the cow, but otherwise re- 

 semble them. The Antilope hezoartica offers a somewhat ana- 

 logous case : the males have long straight spiral horns, nearlj 

 parallel to each other, and directed backwards ; the females 

 occasionally bear horns, but these when present are of a very 

 different shape, for they are not spiral, and spreading widely, 

 bend round with the points forwards. Xow it is a remarkable fact 

 that, in the castrated male, as Mr. Blyth informs me, the horns 

 are of the same peculiar shape as in the female, but longer and 

 thicker. If we may judge from analogy, the female probably 

 shows us, in these two cases of cattle and the antelope, the former 



" Sir Andrew Smith, ' Zoology quiries for me in Saxnny on this 



of S. Africa,' pi. xix. Owen, 'Ana- subject. H. von Nathusius (' Viet ■ 



tomy of Vertebrates,' vol. iii. p. 624. zucht,' 1872, p. 64) says tliat t) a 



" This is the conclusion of horns of sheep castrated at an eariy 



Seidlitz, ' Die Darwinsche Theorie,' period, either altogether disappeai 



1871, p. 47. or remain as meie rudiments; bui 



" 1 am much obliged to Prof. I do'not Itnow whetJur he rcf'tri 



Victor Cams, for having maae en- to merinos or to o-Hinnr }rf,»t\-i. 



