330 BRITISH MAMMALS 



When stags fight with their antlers, or attack other animals, 

 including man, they deal the fatal blow with the brow tine, 

 stabbing downwards or upwards, whichever may be the easier 

 method of dealing a blow home to the adversary's heart or 

 belly. They can, no doubt, deal terrible blows, especially to 

 any smaller animal, such as a man or a dog, by bringing the 

 whole mass of the antlers to bear on the object ; and in fighting 

 with one another they sometimes strive to push the adversary 

 over on his side with a direct thrust of the whole antler, or else 

 by means of fencing to use the adversary's horns as a lever to 

 turn over head and body. In other species of deer, in which the 

 brow tine is not much developed, and its place for stabbing 



2nd year's antlers. 



The Progressive Growth of a Red Deer's Antlers. 



ist year hornless. 



purposes is not taken by any other forward prong or snag, the 

 horns do not seem to be of so much use to the male for 

 fighting with his rivals as might be imagined. In many species 

 their development is due to an undefined impulse which stirs 

 throughout living forms, and which cannot be adequately ex- 

 plained by Darwin's theory of female approval and selection, 

 since that, for instance, would hardly explain the extraordinary 

 beauty developed by certain sea-shells. Just as a race or an 

 individual, when it has attained competence, and more than 

 competence, begins to crave for beauty in some form, so it 

 would seem that directly a species of plants or animals has 

 become well established and successful it expends some of its 

 accumulated energy in developing mere (useless .-') beauty. 



