horns forward, he would generally be under a great disadvantage when attacked by any other animal. It is, therefore, not probable that the horns have been modified into their present great length and peculiar position, as a protection against beasts of prey. We can however see that, as soon as some ancient male progenitor of the Oryx acquired moderately long horns, directed a little backwards, he would be compelled, in his battles with rival males, to bend his head somewhat inwards or downwards, as is now done by certain stags; and it is not improbable that he might have acquired the habit of at first occasionally and afterwards of regularly kneeling down. In this case it is almost certain that the males which possessed the longest horns would have had a great advantage over others with shorter horns; and then the horns would gradually have been rendered longer and longer, through sexual selection, until they acquired their present extraordinary length and position.
With stags of many kinds the branches of the horns offer a curious case of difficulty; for certainly a single straight point would inflict a much more serious wound than several diverging ones. In Sir Philip Egerton's museum there is a horn of the red-deer (Cervus elaphus), thirty inches in length, with "not fewer than fifteen snags or branches;" and at Moritzburg there is still preserved a pair of antlers of a red-deer, shot in 1699 by Frederick I., one of which bears the astonishing number of thirty-three branches and the other twenty-seven, making altogether sixty branches. Richardson figures a pair of antlers of the wild reindeer with twenty-nine points.[1] From the manner in which the horns are branched, and more especially from deer being known occasionally to fight together by kicking with their fore-feet,[2] M. Bailly actually comes to the conclusion that their horns are more injurious than useful to them? But this author overlooks the pitched battles between rival males. As I felt much perplexed about the use or advantage of the branches, I applied to Mr. McNeill of Colonsay, who has long and carefully observed the habits of red-deer, and he informs me that he has never seen some of the branches brought into use, but that the brow antlers, from inclining downwards, are a great protection to the forehead, and their points are likewise
- ↑ On the horns of red-deer, Owen, 'British Fossil Mammals,' 1846, p. 478; Richardson on the horns of the reindeer, 'Fauna Bor. Americana,' 1829, p. 240. I am indebted to Prof. Victor Carus, for the Moritzburg case.
- ↑ Hon. J. D. Caton ('Ottawa Acad. of Nat. Science,' May, 1868, p. 9), says that the American deer fight with their fore-feet, after "the question of superiority has been once settled and acknowledged in the herd." Bailly, 'Sur l'usage des Cornes,' 'Annales des Sc. Nat.' tom. ii. 1824, p. 371.
