until April or May, when she brings forth her young. Mr. Crotch made
particular enquiries for me in Norway, and it appears that the females
at this season conceal themselves for about a fortnight in order to
bring forth their young, and then reappear, generally hornless. In Nova
Scotia, however, as I hear from Mr. H. Reeks, the female sometimes
retains her horns longer. The male on the other hand casts his horns
much earlier, towards the end of November. As both sexes have the same
requirements and follow the same habits of life, and as the male is
destitute of horns during the winter, it is improbable that they can be
of any special service to the female during this season, which includes
the larger part of the time during which she is horned. Nor is it
probable that she can have inherited horns from some ancient progenitor
of the family of deer, for, from the fact of the females of so many
species in all quarters of the globe not having horns, we may conclude
that this was the primordial character of the group. (8. On the
structure and shedding of the horns of the reindeer, Hoffberg,
Amoenitates Acad. vol. iv. 1788, p. 149. See Richardson, Fauna Bor.
Americana, p. 241, in regard to the American variety or species: also
Major W. Ross King, The Sportsman in Canada, 1866, p. 80.
The horns of the reindeer are developed at a most unusually early age;
but what the cause of this may be is not known. The effect has
apparently been the transference of the horns to both sexes. We should
bear in mind that horns are always transmitted through the female, and
that she has a latent capacity for their development, as we see in old
or diseased females. (9. Isidore Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, Essais de
Zoolog. Generale, 1841, p. 513. Other masculine characters, besides
the horns, are sometimes similarly transferred to the female; thus Mr.
Boner, in speaking of an old female chamois ( Chamois Hunting in the
Mountains of Bavaria, 1860, 2nd ed., p. 363), says, not only was the
head very male-looking, but along the back there was a ridge of long
hair, usually to be found only in bucks. ) Moreover the females of some
other species of deer exhibit, either normally or occasionally,
rudiments of horns; thus the female of Cervulus moschatus has bristly
tufts, ending in a knob, instead of a horn ; and in most specimens of
the female wapiti (Cervus canadensis) there is a sharp bony
protuberance in the place of the horn. (10. On the Cervulus, Dr. Gray,
Catalogue of Mammalia in the British Museum, part iii. p. 220. On the
Cervus canadensis or wapiti, see Hon. J.D. Caton, Ottawa Academy of
Nat. Sciences, May 1868, p. 9.) From these several considerations we
531