SEXUAL SELECTION 659 



occasionally and afterward of regularly kneeling down. In 

 this case it is almost certain that the males which possessed 

 the longest horns would have had a great advantage over 

 others with shorter horns; and then the horns would grad- 

 ually have been rendered longer and longer, through sexual 

 selection, until they acquired their present extraordinary 

 length and position. 



With stags of many kinds the branches of the horns offer 

 a curious case of difficulty; for cerlainly a single straight 

 point would inflict a much more serious wound than several 

 diverging ones. In Sir Philip Egerton's museum there is 

 a horn of the red-deer {Gervus elaphus), thirty inches in 

 length, with "not fewer than fifteen snags or branches"; 

 and at Moritzburg there is still preserved a pair of antlers 

 of a red-deer, shot in 1699 by Frederick I., one of which 

 bears the astonishing number of thirty-three branches and 

 the other twenty-seven, making altogether sixty branches. 

 Richardson figures a pair of antlers of the wild reindeer 

 with twenty-nine points.'* From the manner in which the 

 horns are branched, and niore especially from deer being 

 known occasionally to fight together by kicking with their 

 forefeet," M. Bailly actually comes to the conclusion that 

 their horns are more injurious than useful to them! But 

 this author overlooks the pitched battles between rival 

 males. As I felt much perplexed about the use or ad- 

 vantage of the branches, I applied to Mr. McNeill, of 

 Colonsay, who has long and carefully observed the habits 

 of red-deer, and he informs me that he has never seen some 

 of the branches brought into use, but that the brow antlers, 

 from inclining downward, are a great protection to the fore- 

 head, and their points are likewise used in attack. Sir Philip 



«* On the homa of red-deer, Owen, "British Fossil Mammals," 1846, p. 418; 

 Richardson on the horns of the reindeer, "Fauna Bor. Americana," 1829, 

 p. 240. I am indebted to Prof. Victor Carus for the Moritzburg case. 



«» Hon. J. D. Oaton ("Ottawa Acad, of Nat. Science," May, 1868, p. 9) 

 says that the American deer fight with their forefeet, after "the question of 

 superiority, has been once settled and acknowledged in the herd." BaiUy, 

 "SuT I'uaage des Comes," "Annales des Se. Nal,.," tom. ii., 1824, p, 3U. 



