242 THE ZOOLOGIST. 





hypothesis must at least agree with the particular facts which it 

 is framed to explain, and, assuming that these facts are properly 

 established, it must agree with all of them. Tested by the facts 

 to which it is here applied, the hypothesis of sexual selection is 

 proved incompetent to play the part assigned to it ; and is found 

 superfluous, because the broader principle, which secures the 

 preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life, provides a 

 fitter explanation of the phenomena in question. To establish 

 this conclusion will be the end of the present paper. 



Antlers and horns, when viewed as something more than 

 the familiar trophies of sportsmen, represent the comparatively 

 finished product of a long biological adjustment, the factors of 

 which can be found only in the life-history of existing ruminants. 

 Two questions in chief are suggested by the study of these 

 weapons, and must be met by any sufficient explanation of them, 

 (i.) Inquiry into their purpose leads us to consider the type or 

 style of weapon as an adaptation of means to ends, and asks the 

 question how they came to be fashioned in this particular way ? 

 (ii.) Inquiry into their origin leads us to consider their partial 

 limitation as to sex, and asks the question why they are variably 

 present or absent in the females of genera and species whose 

 males possess them generally ? 



Facing the subject from the standpoint of sexual selection, 

 Darwin confronted difficulties in both respects, and stated them 

 with characteristic frankness. In respect of structure, he rightly 

 judged that the curiously curving horns of Antelopes, no less 

 than the branched antlers of Deer, were weapons ill adapted to 

 the purposes of sexual warfare between butting animals ; failing 

 as an adjustment for attack, because (as Caton also thought) a 

 single straight point would have proved a far more deadly weapon ; 

 and disadvantageous as an adjustment for defence, because the 

 complex types were liable to become interlocked with fatal result 

 to both combatants. Explained as the effect of charm conse- 

 quent upon female choice, "arborescent antlers'' are beset with 

 further difficulties. As Darwin recognised, they weight their 

 owners with needless, if not injurious, ornament, and force the 

 somewhat hazardous conclusion that female preference in the 

 struggles of sex must handicap chosen males in the sterner 

 struggle for life. Female choice in pairing does not, however, 

 exist with herding ruminants in a state of nature, because the more 



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