660 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



Egerton also informs me both as to red-deer and fallow-deer 

 that, in fighting, they suddenly dash together, and getting 

 their horns fixed against each other's bodies, a desperate 

 struggle ensues. When one is at last forced to yield and 

 turn round, the victor endeavors to plunge his brow antlers 

 into his defeated foe. It thus appears that the upper branches 

 are used chiefly or exclusively for pushing and fencing. Nev- 

 ertheless, in some species the upper branches are- used as 

 weapons of offence; when a man was attacked by a wapiti 

 deer {Gervus canadensis) in Judge Caton's park in Ottawa, 

 and several men tried to rescue him, the stag "never raised 

 his head from the ground ; in fact, he kept his face almost 

 flat on the ground, with his nose nearly between his fore- 

 feet, except when he rolled his head to one side to take a 

 new observation preparatory to a plunge." In this posi- 

 tion the ends of the horns were directed against his adver- 

 saries. "In rolling his head he necessarily raised it some- 

 what, because his antlers were so long that he could not 

 roll his head without raising them on one side, while, on 

 the other side, they touched the ground." The stag by 

 this procedure gradually drove the party of rescuers back- 

 ward to a distance of 150 or 200 feet, and the attacked man 

 was killed." 



Although the horns of stags are efficient weapons, there 

 can, I think, be no doubt that a single point would have 

 been much more dangerous than a branched antler; and 

 Judge Caton, who has had large experience with deer, 

 fully concurs in this conclusion. Nor do the branching 

 horns, though highly important as a means of defence 

 against rival stags, appear perfectly well adapted for this 

 purpose, as they are liable to become interlocked. The 

 suspicion has therefore crossed my mind that they may 

 serve in part as ornaments. That the branched antlers of 

 stags, as well as the elegant lyrated horns of certain ante- 



'* See a most interesting account in the Appendix to Hon. J. D. Caton's 

 paper, as above quoted. 



