instances. When stags, and the males of the wild goat, are enraged or terrified, these crests stand erect;[1] but it cannot be supposed that they have been developed merely for the sake of exciting fear in their enemies. One of the above-named antelopes, the Portax picta, has a large well-defined brush of black hair on the throat, and this is much larger in the male than in the female. In the Ammotragus trugelaphus of North Africa, a member of the sheep-family, the fore-legs are almost concealed by an extraordinary growth of hair, which depends from the neck and upper halves of the legs; but Mr. Bartlett does not believe that this mantle is of the least use to the male, in whom it is much more developed than in the female.
Male quadrupeds of many kinds differ from the females in having more hair, or hair of a different character, on certain parts of their faces. Thus the bull alone has curled hair on the forehead.[2] In three closely-allied sub-genera of the goat family, only the males possess beards, sometimes of large size; in two other sub-genera both sexes have a beard, but it disappears in some of the domestic breeds of the common goat; and neither sex of the Hemitragus has a beard. In the ibex the beard is not developed during the summer, and it is so small at other times that it may be called rudimentary.[3] With some monkeys the beard is confined to the male, as in the orang; or is much larger in the male than in the female, as in the Mycetes caraya and Pithecia satanas (fig. 68). So it is with the whiskers of some species of Macacus,[4] and, as we have seen, with the manes of some species of baboons. But with most kinds of monkeys the various tufts of hair about the face and head are alike in both sexes.
The males of various members of the ox family (Bovidæ), and of certain antelopes, are furnished with a dewlap, or great fold of skin on the neck, which is much less developed in the female.
Now, what must we conclude with respect to such sexual differences as these? No one will pretend that the beards of certain male goats, or the dewlap of the bull, or the crests of hair along the backs of certain male antelopes, are of any use to them in their ordinary habits. It is possible that the immense beard of the male Pithecia, and the large beard of the male orang, may protect their throats when fighting; for the keepers in the Zoological Gardens inform me that many
- ↑ Judge Caton on the Wapiti, 'Transact. Ottawa Acad. Nat. Sciences,' 1868, pp. 36, 40; Blyth, 'Land and Water,' on Capra ægagrus, 1867, p. 37.
- ↑ 'Hunter's Essays and Observations,' edited by Owen, 1861, vol. i. p. 236.
- ↑ See Dr. Gray's 'Cat. of Mammalia in British Museum,' part iii. 1852, p. 144.
- ↑ 'Rengger, 'Säugethiere,' &c. s. 14; Desmarest, 'Mammalogie,' p. 66.
