852 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



fn which both sexes have horns of equal size. As with the 

 reindeer, so with antelopes there exists, as previously 

 shown, a relation between the period of the development 

 of the horns and their transmission to one or both sexes; 

 it is therefore probable that their presence or absence in 

 the females of some species, and their more or less perfect 

 condition in the females of other species, depends, not on 

 their being of any special use, but simply in inheritance. 

 It accords with this view that even in the same restricted 

 genus both sexes of some species, and the males alone of 

 others, are thus provided. It is also a remarkable fact 

 that, although the females of Antilope hezoartica are nor- 

 mally destitute of horns, Mr. Blyth has seen no less than 

 three females thus furnished; and there was no reason to 

 suppose that they were old or diseased. 



In all the wild species of goats and sheep the horns are 

 larger in the male than in the female, and are sometimes 

 quite absent in the latter." In several domestic breeds of 

 these two animals, the males alone are furnished with horns; 

 and in some breeds, for instance, in the sheep of North Wales, 

 though both sexes are properly homed, the ewes are very 

 liable to be hornless. I have been informed by a trust- 

 worthy witness, who purposely inspected a flock of these 

 same sheep during the lambing season, that the horns at 

 birth are generally more fully developed in the male than 

 the female. Mr. J. Peel crossed his Lonk sheep, both sexes 

 of which always bear horns, with hornless Leicesters and 

 hornless Shropshire Downs; and the result was that the 

 male offspring had their horns considerably reduced, while 

 the females were wholly destitute of them. These several 

 facts indicate that, with sheep, the horns are a much less 

 firmly fixed character in the females than in the males; and 

 this leads us to look at the horns as properly of masculine 

 origin. 



of a distinct species, viz., the Ant. dorcas var. Corine; see Desmarest "Mam- 

 malogie," p. 455. 



" Gray, "Catalogue Mamm. Brit. Mus.," part iii., 1852, p. 160. 



