condition of the horns in some early progenitor of each species. But why castration should lead to the reappearance of an early condition of the horns cannot be explained with any certainty. Nevertheless, it seems probable, that in nearly the same manner as the constitutional disturbance in the offspring, caused by a cross between two distinct species or races, often leads to the reappearance of long-lost characters;[1] so here, the disturbance in the constitution of the individual, resulting from castration, produces the same effect.
The tusks of the elephant, in the different species or races, differ according to sex, nearly as do the horns of ruminants. In India and Malacca the males alone are provided with well-developed tusks. The elephant of Ceylon is considered by most naturalists as a distinct race, but by some as a distinct species, and here "not one in a hundred is found with tusks, the few that possess them being exclusively males."[2] The African elephant is undoubtedly distinct, and the female has large well-developed tusks, though not so large as those of the male.
These differences in the tusks of the several races and species of elephants—the great variability of the horns of deer, as notably in the wild reindeer—the occasional presence of horns in the female Antilope bezoartica, and their frequent absence in the female of Antilocapra americana—the presence of two tusks in some few male narwhals—the complete absence of tusks in some female walruses—are all instances of the extreme variability of secondary sexual characters, and of their liability to differ in closely-allied forms.
Although tusks and horns appear in all cases to have been primarily developed as sexual weapons, they often serve other purposes. The elephant uses his tusks in attacking the tiger; according to Bruce, he scores the trunks of trees until they can be thrown down easily, and he likewise thus extracts the farinaceous cores of palms; in Africa he often uses one tusk, always the same, to probe the ground and thus ascertain whether it will bear his weight. The common bull defends the herd with his horns; and the elk in Sweden has been known, according to Lloyd, to strike a wolf dead with a single blow of his great horns. Many similar facts could be given. One of the most curious secondary uses to which the horns of an animal may be occasionally put, is that observed by Captain Hutton[3] with
- ↑ I have given various experiments and other evidence proving that this is the case, in my 'Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,' vol. ii., 1868, pp. 39–47.
- ↑ Sir. J. Emerson Tennent, 'Ceylon,' 1859, vol. ii. p. 274. For Malacca, 'Journal of Indian Archipelago,' vol. iv. p. 357.
- ↑ 'Calcutta Journal of Nat. Hist.' vol. ii. 1843, p. 526.
