Archive image from page 541 of The descent of man, and. The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex descentofmanse00darw Year: 1870 540 THR DESCENT OF MAN. ipart ii Strength, size, speed, and courage, and the best will have been bred from. As, however, thfi males do not attain their full dimensions until rather late in life, they will have tended, in accordance with the law often indicated, to transmit their characters to their male offspring alonj; and thus the great inequality in size between the sexes of the Scotch deer-hound may probably be accounted for. The males of some few qu
Archive image from page 541 of The descent of man, and. The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex descentofmanse00darw Year: 1870 540 THR DESCENT OF MAN. ipart ii Strength, size, speed, and courage, and the best will have been bred from. As, however, thfi males do not attain their full dimensions until rather late in life, they will have tended, in accordance with the law often indicated, to transmit their characters to their male offspring alonj; and thus the great inequality in size between the sexes of the Scotch deer-hound may probably be accounted for. The males of some few quadrupeds possess organs or parts developed solely as a means of defence against the attacks of other males. Some kinds of deer use, as we have seen, the upper branches of their horns chiefly or exclusively for defend- ing themselves; and the Oryx antelope, as I am informed by' Mr. Bartlett, fences most skilfully with his long, gently curved horns ; but these are likewise used as organs of offence. The same observer remarks that rhinoceroses, in fighting, parry each othtr's sidelong blows with their horns, which clatter loudly together, as do the tusks of boars Although wild boars fight desperately, they seldom, according to Brehm, receive fatal wounds, as the blows fall on each other's tusks, or on the layer of gristl/ skin covering the shoulder, called by the German hunters the shield; and here we have a part spe- cially modified for defence. With boars in the prime of hfe (see fig. 65) the tusks in the lower jaw are used for fighting, but they be- come m old age, as Brehm states, so much curved in- ward and upward over the snout that they can no longer be used m this way. They may, however, still serve, and even more effec- FiG. 65.—Head of Common Wild Voar, in prime jyely 33 a meanS of de- of life (from Brehm). - ' t • r fence. In compensation tor the loss of the lower tusk? as weapons of offence, those in the upper jaw, which always project a little laterally, increase
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