432 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
sexual selection the horns should have become longer and sharper, — 
and have dropped their tynes, thus making them better weapons. — 
The reverse has certainly occurred, and antlers developed of extra- 
ordinary size, cumbersome and useless in comparison with the 
short dagger-like horns of the Miocene deer. According to Dar- 
win’s latest modification, in his Descent of Man, the increase in 
the size would be accounted for by sexual selection ; namely that 
the females would select the males having the largest horns, and 
thus the size of the horns would be increased by successive gen- 
erations. If this be the explanation, how shall we account for the 
rise of the short-horned variety at the present time? Darwin 
quotes this instance as an example of natural and sexual selection, 
in his last book, “ The Descent of Man,” vol. ii. p. 243, Am. ed. 
Presuming, however, that natural selection does account for — 
the evolution of the branching horns, and also for the preserva- 
tion and gradual increase in numbers of the present spike-horned — 
buck, as it may be fairly assumed in many instances to act in th 
preservation and perpetuation of many characteristics, it neither 
does nor can account for the first appearance of horns, or the first 
appearance of a full-grown buck having the spike-horns. This — 
inadequacy of the theory of natural selection to show us how — 
characteristics arise has been repeatedly insisted upon by several 
authors. Professor Cope and himself, in two widely separated E 
departments, among the Reptiles on the one hand, and the Mol- 
lusks on the other, have repeatedly pointed out the mode in which 
characteristics, races, species and genera have arisen. Several 
writers on the continent, and Mr. St. George Mivart, in his “+ Gene- 
sis of Species,” have lately taken similar views. The latter contin- 
ually alludes to the sudden-rise of species or races, and gives aP — 
instance of the sudden appearance of the black-shouldered pes- — 
cock. This variety, previously known in India as a separate SP 
cies, speedily increased to the extinction of the original form. — 
Here, a$ St. George Mivart points out, under different geograph- — 
ical influences, the same species has suddenly arisen in India and — 
in England. Here are no slow changes similar to those perpetu 
cited by Darwin and Wallace, no gradual fading of one gi 
into another, but a sudden evolution of a new distinct forme: = 
Mivart, too, states that the view here advocated piss. 
whole organic world as arising and going forward in one harmoni- : 
ous development, similar to that which displays itself in the growth 
