Characters 



35 



that the possession of defensive weapons, whether cranial or dental, by both 

 sexes was a primitive character, we have no difficulty in fixing limitation to 

 sex as the first point of divergence in the history of the antlered deer. We 

 conclude, further, that Rangifer represents the oldest line of existing deer 

 with antlers, and the conclusion may be pressed home with the facts noted 

 by Darwin relative to the time of life at which the antlers first appear. In 

 seven species, of which the males alone carried antlers, belonging to distinct 

 sections of the family, and inhabiting different regions, these appendages 

 were found to develop at periods varying from nine months after birth in 

 the roebuck, to ten, twelve, or even more months in the stags of the six 

 other and larger species. In the case of the reindeer, Professor Nilsson found 

 that the antlers appeared in the young animals within four or five weeks after 

 birth, and at the same time in both sexes, so that we have here a structure 

 developed at an unusually early age in one species of the family, and likewise 

 common to both sexes in this one species only." A fawn born at Woburn 

 Abbey also showed antlers in a few weeks. 



Against the view that reindeer are a primitive type may be urged the 

 loss of the spotted coat in the young, which is evidently a specialised feature, 

 although one which may possibly be of late acquisition. The absence of 

 remains of reindeer from formations older than the Plistocene period has 

 been already mentioned. With regard to the argument from the presence 

 of antlers in both sexes, it is rather difficult to see on what foundation this 

 rests. In the Pliocene and Miocene cervine genus Dremotherium some 

 individuals were provided with antlers which were lacking in others, and it 

 has yet to be demonstrated that these latter are not the females of the former. 

 Again, in the Bovidce, or hollow-horned ruminants, it is mostly in the 

 specialised and modern forms that the females, if horned at all, carry large 

 horns. For instance, in the modern oxen the females have these appendages 

 very largely developed, whereas in some of the Pliocene species of the genus 

 this sex was hornless. On the other hand, in the kudus (Strepsiceros), har- 

 nessed antelopes (Trage/ap/ius), and elands (Or/as), in which the cheek-teeth 

 are of a low-crowned primitive type, it is only in the last-named genus that 

 the females are normally horned. Again, in the gazelles and their allies, 

 which are known to be an ancient group dating as far back as the Miocene 

 period, it is generally only the males that are horned. 



Although they present an enormous amount of racial and individual 



