650 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



female through natural selection; that is, if the successive 

 yariations were limited in their transmission to the female 

 sex, for otherwise the weapons of the males would have 

 been injuriously affected, and this would have been a 

 greater evil. On the whole, and from the consideration 

 of the following facts, it seems probable that when the 

 various weapons differ in the two sexes, this has generally 

 depended on the kind of transmission which has prevailed. 

 As the reindeer is the one species in the whole family 

 of Deer in which the female is furnisbed with horns, though 

 they are somewhat smaller, thinner, and less branched than 

 in the male, it might naturally be thought that, at least in 

 this case, they must be of some special service to her. The 

 female retains her borns from the time when they are fully 

 developed, namely, in September, throughout the winter 

 until April or May, when she brings forth her young. 

 Mr. Crotch made particular inquiries for me in Norway, 

 and it appears that the females at this season conceal 

 themselves for about a fortnight in order to bring forth 

 their young, and then reappear, generally hornless. In 

 Nova Scotia, however, as I hear from Mr. H. Eeeks, the 

 female sometimes retains her horns longer. The male, on 

 the other hand, casts his horns much earlier, toward the 

 end of November. As both sexes have the same require- 

 ments and follow the same habits of life, and as the male 

 is destitute of horns during the winter, it is improbable 

 that they can be of any special service to the female dur- 

 ing this season, which includes the larger part of the time 

 during which she is horned. Nor is it probable that she 

 can have inherited horns from some ancient progenitor of 

 the family of deer, for, from the fact of the females of so 

 many species in all quarters of the globe not having horns, 

 we may conclude that this was the primordial character of 

 the group.' 



8 On the structure and shedding of the horna of the reindeer, Hoffberg, 

 "Amoenitates Acad.," vol. iv., 1788, p. 149. See Eichardson, "Fauna Bor. 

 Americana," p. 241, in regard to the American variety or species; also Major 

 W. Boss King, "The Sportsman In Canada," 1866, p. 80. 



