C5HAP. XVII. Mammals — Law of Battle. 513 



" advantage to its possessor over the common buck. Besides 

 '■ enabling him to run more swiftly through the thick woods and 

 " underbrush (every hunter knows that does and yearling 

 " bucks run much more rapidly than the large bucks when 

 " armed with their cumbrous antlers), the spike-horn is a more 

 " effective weapon tlian the common antler. With this advantage 

 " the spike-horn bucks are gaining upon the common bucks, and 

 " may, in time, entirely supersede them in the Adirondacks. 

 ' Undoubtedly, the first spike-horn buck was merely an acci- 

 '■ dental freak of nature. But his spike-horns gave him an 

 " advantage, and enabled him to propagate his peculiarity. His 

 " descendants having a like advantage, have propagated the 

 " peculiarity in a constantly increasing ratio, till they are 

 " slowly 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 1 

 can only answer by remarking, that a new mode of attack with 

 new weapons might be a great advantage, as shewn by the case 

 of the Oois cycluceros,-wh.o thus conquered a domestic ram famous 

 for his fighting power. Though the branched antlers of a stag 

 are well adapted for fighting with his rivals, and though it 

 might be an advantage to the prong-homed 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 antielope 

 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 havii^ 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 forwards and upwards he is able to fling a tiger to a 

 gr. at distance — it is said to even thirty feet ; when they are 

 •short and turned downwards he endeavours suddenly to pin the 



" P.all.is, 'Sf'<:ilegia Zoologica,' ^ Lament, 'Seasoas with the S»» 



i^c. liii. 1779, p. 18. Horses,' 18B1, p. 141. 



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