<554 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



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 Welsh sheep the horns of the males are consider- 

 ably 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, while the ewes "generally speaking are without 

 horns"; and in this breed castration seems to produce a 

 somewhat greater effect, 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 Reade informs me, the 

 rams after castration are quite destitute 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 resemble them. The 

 Antilope bezoartica offers a somewhat analogous case: the 

 males have long, straight, spiral horns, nearly parallel to 

 each other, and directed backward; 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 forward. Now 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 fe- 

 male probably shows us, in these two cases of cattle and the 

 ' antelope, the former condition of the horns in some early 

 progenitor of each species. But why castration should lead 

 to the reappearance of an early condition of the horns can- 

 not be explained with any certainty. Nevertheless, it seems 



" I am much obliged to Prof. Victor Carus for having made inquiries for 

 me in Saxony on this subject. H. von Nathusius ("Viehzucht," 1872, p. 64) 

 Bays that the horns ot sheep castrated at an early period either allogether dis- 

 appear or remain as mere rudiments; but I^lo not know whether he refers to 

 merinos or to ordinary breeds 



