tiger to the ground and, in consequence, is dangerous to the rider, who is liable to be jerked off the howdah.[1]
Very few male quadrupeds possess weapons of two distinct kinds specially adapted for fighting with rival males. The male muntjac-deer (Cervulus), however, offers an exception, as he is provided with horns and exserted canine teeth. But we may infer from what follows that one form of weapon has often been replaced in the course of ages by another. With ruminants the development of horns generally stands in an inverse relation with that of even moderately developed canine teeth. Thus camels, guanacoes, chevrotains, and musk-deer, are hornless, and they have efficient canines; these teeth being "always of smaller size in the females than in the males." The Camelidæ have, in addition to their true canines, a pair of canine-shaped incisors in their upper jaws.[2] Male deer and antelopes, on the other hand, possess horns, and they rarely have canine teeth; and these, when present, are always of small size, so that it is doubtful whether they are of any service in their battles. In Antilope montana they exist only as rudiments in the young male, disappearing as he grows old; and they are absent in the female at all ages; but the females of certain other antelopes and of certain deer have been known occasionally to exhibit rudiments of these teeth.[3] Stallions have small canine teeth, which are either quite absent or rudimentary in the mare; but they do not appear to be used in fighting, for stallions bite with their incisors, and do not open their mouths wide like camels and guanacoes. Whenever the adult male possesses canines, now inefficient, whilst the female has either none or mere rudiments, we may conclude that the early male progenitor of the species was provided with efficient canines, which have been partially transferred to the females. The reduction of these teeth in the males seems to have followed from some change in their manner of fighting, often (but not in the horse) caused by the development of new weapons.
Tusks and horns are manifestly of high importance to their
- ↑ See also Corse ('Philosoph. Transact.' 1799, p. 212) on the manner in which the short-tusked Mooknah variety attacks other elephants.
- ↑ Owen, 'Anatomy of Vertebrates,' vol. iii. p. 349.
- ↑ See Rüppell (in 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc' Jan. 12, 1836, p. 3) on the canines in deer and antelopes, with a note by Mr. Martin on a female American deer. See also Falconer ('Palæont. Memoirs and Notes,' vol. i. 1868, p. 576) on canines in an adult female deer. In old males of the musk-deer the canines (Pallas, 'Spic. Zoolog.' fasc. xiii. 1779, p. 18) sometimes grow to the length of three inches, whilst in old females a rudiment projects scarcely half an inch above the gums.
