240 
SEXUAL SELECTION: MAMMALS. 
Paet II. 
restrial mammals. It is notorious how desperately male 
seals fight, both with their teeth and claws, during the 
breeding-season ; and their hides are likewise often 
covered with scars. Male sperm-whales are very jea- 
lous at this season ; and in their battles they often 
lock their jaws together, and turn on their sides and 
twist about so that it is believed by some naturalists 
that the frequently deformed state of their lower jaws is 
caused by these struggles.^ 
All male animals which are furnished with special 
weapons for fighting, are well known to engage in fierce 
battles. The courage and the desperate conflicts of stags 
have often been described ; their skeletons have been 
found in various parts of the world, with the horns in- 
extricably locked together, shewing how miserably the 
victor and vanquished had perished.^ No animal in the 
world is so dangerous as an elephant in must. Lord 
Tankerville has given me a graphic description of the 
battles between the wild bulls in Chillingham Park, 
the descendants, degenerated in size but not in courage, 
of the gigantic Bos ^rimigenius. In 1861 several con- 
tended for mastery; and it was observed that two of 
the younger bulls attacked in concert the old leader 
of the herd, overthrew and disabled him, so that he was 
believed by the keepers to be lying mortally wounded 
in a neighbouring wood. But a few days afterwards one 
of the young bulls singly approached the wood; and 
^ On the battles of seals, see Capt. C. Abbott in ‘ Proc. Zool. Soc.’ 
1868, p. 191; also Mr. H. Brown, ibid. 1869, p. 436 ; also L. Lloyd, 
‘ Game Birds of Sweden,’ 1867, p. 412 ; also Pennant. On the sperm- 
whale, see Mr. J. H. Thompson, in ‘ Proc. Zool. Soc.’ 1867, p. 246. 
^ See Scrope Q Art of Deer-stalking,’ p. 17) on the locking of the 
horns with the Cervus elephns. Eichardson, in ‘ Fauna Bor. Ameri- 
cana,’ 1829, p. 252, says that the wapiti, moose, and rein-deer have been 
found thus locked together. Sir A. Smith found at the Cape of Good 
Hope the skeletons of two gnus in the same condition. 
