2M 
SEXUAL SELECTION : MAMMALS. 
PaR t ‘ 
sheds his horns during the winter, it is very improba^® 
that tiiey can be of any special service to the fernal e ■' 
this season, which includes the larger proportion oi 
time during which she hears horns. Nor is it probab 1 
tliat she can have inherited horns from some anck' 1 
progenitor of the whole family of deer, for, from the k ( . 
ot the males alone of so many species in all quartet 0 
the globe possessing horns, we may conclude that t^' 
was the primordial character of the group. Hence J 
appears that horns must have been transferred from t! ‘J_ 
male to the female at a period subsequent to the di'’ e ^ 
gence of the various species from a common stock! 
that this was not effected for the sake of giving her 1)1 • 
special advantage. 8 
We know that the horns are developed at a 
unusually early age in the reindeer ; but what the ca' lS ^ 
of tins may have been is not known. The effect, k° 
ever, has apparently been the transference of the ho lIl j, 
to both sexes. It is intelligible on the hypothesis^ 
pangenesis, that a very slight change in the constit'd 11 ^ 
ot the male, either in the tissues of the forehead ot 
the gemmules of the horns, might lead to their e! “ ; 
r&o* 
st 
development ; and as the young of both sexes 
nearly the same constitution before the period of r 
rep 
in 
,r0' 
'the 
■se- 
duction, the horns, if developed at an early age 
male, would tend to be developed equally’ in both se ^ )6 
In support of this view, w e should bear in mind that ^ 
horns are always transmitted through the female ‘ l 
that sire lias a latent capacity for their development’ 
we see in old or disease 1 females. 9 Moreover tbe " 
.If 
,tr- 
8 On the structure and shedding of tile horns of the reindr^ 1 ’ 
berg, ‘ Amoenitates Acad.’ voL iv. 1 788, p. 1*19. See Iiiohardsom ‘ J ^ 
Bor. Americana,’ p. 211, in regard to the American variety or **]* 
also Major W. Boss King, ‘ The Sportsman in Canada/ 1866, P’, jgjb 
9 Isidore Geoffrey St. -Hilaire, ‘ Essais de Zoolog. General c» 
p. 513. Other masculine characters, besides the horns, are son 10 
