more fully developed in the male than in the female. Mr. J. Peel
crossed his Lonk sheep, both sexes of which always bear horns, with
hornless Leicesters and hornless Shropshire Downs; and the result was
that the male offspring had their horns considerably reduced, whilst
the females were wholly destitute of them. These several facts indicate
that, with sheep, the horns are a much less firmly fixed character in
the females than in the males; and this leads us to look at the horns
as properly of masculine origin.
With the adult musk-ox (Ovibos moschatus) the horns of the male are
larger than those of the female, and in the latter the bases do not
touch. (14. Richardson, Fauna Bor. Americana, p. 278.) In regard to
ordinary cattle Mr. Blyth remarks: In most of the wild bovine animals
the horns are both longer and thicker in the bull than in the cow, and
in the cow-banteng (Bos sondaicus) the horns are remarkably small, and
inclined much backwards. In the domestic races of cattle, both of the
humped and humpless types, the horns are short and thick in the bull,
longer and more slender in the cow and ox; and in the Indian buffalo,
they are shorter and thicker in the bull, longer and more slender in
the cow. In the wild gaour (B. gaurus) the horns are mostly both longer
and thicker in the bull than in the cow. (15. Land and Water, 1867,
p. 346.) Dr. Forsyth Major also informs me that a fossil skull,
believed to be that of the female Bos etruscus, has been found in Val
d Arno, which is wholly without horns. In the Rhinoceros simus, as I
may add, the horns of the female are generally longer but less powerful
than in the male; and in some other species of rhinoceros they are said
to be shorter in the female. (16. Sir Andrew Smith, Zoology of S.
Africa, pl. xix. Owen, Anatomy of Vertebrates, vol. iii. p. 624.)
From these various facts we may infer as probable that horns of all
kinds, even when they are equally developed in the two sexes, were
primarily acquired by the male in order to conquer other males, and
have been transferred more or less completely to the female.
The effects of castration deserve notice, as throwing light on this
same point. Stags after the operation never renew their horns. The male
reindeer, however, must be excepted, as after castration he does renew
them. This fact, as well as the possession of horns by both sexes,
seems at first to prove that the horns in this species do not
constitute a sexual character (17. This is the conclusion of Seidlitz,
Die Darwinsche Theorie, 1871, p. 47.); but as they are developed at a
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