SEXUAL SELECTION: MAMMALS. 
239 
Cl Up. XVII, 
CHAPTER XVII. 
Secondary Sexual Characters of Mammals. 
Tl 
lt- ' a 'v of battle — Special weapons, confined to the males — Cause 
absence of weapons in the female — Weapons common to both 
s ° St 's, yet primarily acquired by tlio male — Other uses of such 
' v oapons — Their high importance — Greater size of the male — 
®eans of' defence — On the preference shewn by either sex in the 
Pairing of quadrupeds. 
^ H’h mammals the male appears to win the female 
more through the law of battle than through the 
ls play of his charms. The most timid animals, not 
,^°Vided with any special weapons for fighting, engage 
1 desperate conflicts during the season of love. Two 
hl e hares have been seen to fight together until one 
, &s killed ; male moles often fight, and sometimes with 
« !l i results ; male squirrels “ engage in frequent eon- 
es ts, and often wound each other severely;” as do 
j beavers, so that “ hardly a shin is without scars .” 1 
observed the same fact with the hides of the 
hbs 
red the same fact with the hides of the guana- 
in Patagonia ; and on one occasion several were so 
s °rbed in fighting that they fearlessly rushed close by 
e ’ Livingstone speaks of the males of the many ani- 
V. , — v v — “ JliCUlV CILIA- 
^ ais in Southern Africa as almost invariably shewing 
le sears received iu former contests. 
^be law of battle prevails with aquatic as with ter- 
1§, ® eo Waterton’s account of two bares fighting, ‘ Zoologist,’ vol. 
{,• jg P- 21] . On moles, Bell, * Hist, of British Quadrupeds,* 1st edit, 
of \ T ^ On squirrels, Audubon and Bachman, ‘ Viviparous Quadrupeds 
of 1 ; -America,’ 184G, p. 269. On beavers, Mr. A. H. Green, in ‘ Journal 
