246 sexual selection: mammals. pakt 11, 
is therefore probable that their presence or absence > r ' 
the females of some species, and their more or less Y el " 
loct condition in the females of other species, dep e ^’ 
not on their being 0 f some special use, but simply 0,1 
the form of inheritance which has prevailed. It ; ' 1 '" 
cords with this view that even in the same restricted 
genus both sexes of some species, and the males alon® 
of other species, are thus provided. It is a remarkable 
fact that, although the females of Antilope bezoai'^ 
are normally destitute of horns, Mr. Blyth has seen 
less than three females thus furnished ; and there *** 
no reason to suppose that, they were old or disease^ 
The males of this species have long straight spiral 
horns, nearly parallel to each other, and directed bad' 
wards. Those of the female, when present, are vetf 
different in shape, for they are not spiraled, a |)( 
spreading widely bend round, so that their points * re 
directed forwards. It is a still more remarkable & ct 
that in the castrated male, as Mr. Blyth informs me, d® 
horns are of the same peculiar shape as in the fern 3 ^’ 
but longer and thicker. In all cases the difference* 
between the horns of the males and females, and ol 
castrated and entire males, probably depend on vari° fll \ 
causes, on the more or less complete transference 0 
male characters to the females, — on the former std® 
of the progenitors of the species,— and partly perhaps ^ 
the horns being differently nourished, in nearly the 
manner as the spurs of the domestic cock, when insert 
into the comb or other parts of the body, assume vai’i° uS 
abnormal forms from being differently nourished. 
In all the w ild species of goats and sheep the h oi° s 
are larger in the male than in the female, and are s o& e [ 
times cprite absent in the latter. 13 In several domes tjC 
12 Gray, 1 Catalogue Mamm. Brit. Mus.’ part iii. IS52, p. 160> 
