provided with weapons, and as we have just seen with means of defence, these weapons seem to have been acquired within a rather late geological period. Dr. Forsyth Major specifies[1] several miocene species, in none of which do the tusks appear to have been largely developed in the males; and Prof. Rütimeyer was formerly struck with this same fact.
The mane of the lion forms a good defence against the attacks of rival lions, the one danger to which he is liable; for the males, as Sir A. Smith informs me, engage in terrible battles, and a young lion dares not approach an old one. In 1857 a tiger at Bromwich broke into the cage of a lion and a fearful scene ensued: "the lion's mane saved his neck and head from being much injured, but the tiger at last succeeded in ripping up his belly, and in a few minutes he was dead."[2] The broad ruff round the throat and chin of the Canadian lynx (Felis canadensis) is much longer in the male than in the female; but whether it serves as a defence I do not know. Male seals are well known to fight desperately together, and the males of certain kinds (Otaria jubata)[3] have great manes, whilst the females have small ones or none. The male baboon of the Cape of Good Hope (Cynocephalus porcarius) has a much longer mane and larger canine teeth than the female; and the mane probably serves as a protection, for, on asking the keepers in the Zoological Gardens, without giving them any clue to my object, whether any of the monkeys especially attacked each other by the nape of the neck, I was answered that this was not the case, except with the above baboon. In the Hamadryas baboon, Ehrenberg compares the mane of the adult male to that of a young lion, whilst in the young of both sexes and in the female the mane is almost absent.
It appeared to me probable that the immense woolly mane of the male American bison, which reaches almost to the ground, and is much more developed in the males than in the females, served as a protection to them in their terrible battles; but an experienced hunter told Judge Caton that he had never observed anything which favoured this belief. The stallion has a thicker and fuller mane than the mare; and I have made particular inquiries of two great trainers and breeders, who have had charge of many entire horses, and am assured that they "invariably
- ↑ 'Atti della Soc. Italiana di Sc. Nat.' 1873, vol. xv. fasc. iv.
- ↑ 'The Times,' Nov. 10th, 1857. In regard to the Canada lynx, see Audubon and Bachman, 'Quadrupeds of N. America,' 1846, p. 139.
- ↑ Dr. Murie, on Otaria, 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc' 1869, p. 109. Mr. J. A. Allen, in the paper above quoted (p. 75), doubts whether the hair, which is longer on the neck in the male than in the female, deserves to be called a mane.
