ABSTRACT
The suspicion has therefore crossed my mind that they may serve in part as ornaments. But people may infer from what follows that one form of weapon has often been replaced in the course of ages by another. Some kinds of deer use, as people have seen, the upper branches of their horns chiefly or exclusively for defending themselves; and the Oryx antelope, Author informed by Mr Bartlett, fences most skilfully with his long, gently curved horns; but these are likewise used as organs of offence. Although wild boars fight desperately, they seldom, according to Brehm, receive fatal wounds, the blows fall on each other's tusks, or the layer of gristly skin covering the shoulder, called by the German hunters, the shield; and here people have part specially modified for defence. The differences between the sexes in voice, odours emitted, and ornaments, it will be convenient here to consider whether the sexes exert any choice in their unions.
