woods and underbrush (every hunter knows that does and yearling bucks
run much more rapidly than the large bucks when armed with their
cumbrous antlers), the spike-horn is a more effective weapon than the
common antler. With this advantage the spike-horn bucks are gaining
upon the common bucks, and may, in time, entirely supersede them in the
Adirondacks. Undoubtedly, the first spike-horn buck was merely an
accidental freak of nature. But his spike-horns gave him an advantage,
and enabled him to propagate his peculiarity. His descendants having a
like advantage, have propagated the peculiarity in a constantly
increasing ratio, till they are slowly crowding the antlered deer from
the region they inhabit. A critic has well objected to this account by
asking, why, if the simple horns are now so advantageous, were the
branched antlers of the parent-form ever developed? To this I can only
answer by remarking, that a new mode of attack with new weapons might
be a great advantage, as shewn by the case of the Ovis cycloceros, who
thus conquered a domestic ram famous for his fighting power. Though the
branched antlers of a stag are well adapted for fighting with his
rivals, and though it might be an advantage to the prong-horned variety
slowly to acquire long and branched horns, if he had to fight only with
others of the same kind, yet it by no means follows that branched horns
would be the best fitted for conquering a foe differently armed. In the
foregoing case of the Oryx leucoryx, it is almost certain that the
victory would rest with an antelope having short horns, and who
therefore did not need to kneel down, though an oryx might profit by
having still longer horns, if he fought only with his proper rivals.
Male quadrupeds, which are furnished with tusks, use them in various
ways, as in the case of horns. The boar strikes laterally and upwards;
the musk-deer downwards with serious effect. (28. Pallas, Spicilegia
Zoologica, fasc. xiii. 1779, p. 18.) The walrus, though having so
short a neck and so unwieldy a body, can strike either upwards, or
downwards, or sideways, with equal dexterity. (29. Lamont, Seasons
with the Sea-Horses, 1861, p. 141.) I was informed by the late Dr.
Falconer, that the Indian elephant fights in a different manner
according to the position and curvature of his tusks. When they are
directed forwards and upwards he is able to fling a tiger to a great
distance it is said to even thirty feet; when they are short and turned
downwards he endeavours suddenly to pin the tiger to the ground and, in
consequence, is dangerous to the rider, who is liable to be jerked off
the howdah. (30. See also Corse ( Philosophical Transactions, 1799, p.
540