“In other species the glands are confined to the males, or are more
developed than in the females; and they almost always become more active
during the rutting season. At this period the glands on the sides of the
face of the male elephant enlarge, and emit a secretion having a strong
musky odor. The males, and rarely the females, of many kinds of bats
have glands and protrudable sacs situated in various parts; and it is
believed that these are odoriferous.
“The rank effluvium of the male goat is well known, and that of certain
male deer is wonderfully strong and persistent. Besides the general
odor, permeating the whole body of certain ruminants (for instance, _Bos
moschatus_) in the breeding season, many deer, antelopes, sheep, and
goats, possess odoriferous glands in various situations, more especially
on their faces. The so-called tear-sacs, or suborbital pits, come under
this head. These glands secrete a semifluid fetid matter which is
sometimes so copious as to stain the whole face, as I have myself seen
in an antelope. They are ‘usually larger in the male than in the female,
and their development is checked by castration.’ According to Desmarest
they are altogether absent in the female of _Antilope subgutturosa_.
Hence, there can be no doubt that they stand in close relation with the
reproductive functions. They are also sometimes present, and sometimes
absent, in nearly allied forms. In the adult male musk-deer (_Moschus
moschiferus_), a naked space round the tail is bedewed with an
odoriferous fluid, whilst in the adult female and in the male until two
years old, this space is covered with hair, and is not odoriferous.”
Darwin believes in these cases that the odor serves to attract the
females. He admits that here, “active and long-continued use cannot have
come into play as in the case of the vocal organs.” He concludes,
therefore, that “the odor emitted must be of considerable importance to
the male, inasmuch as large and complex glands, furnished with muscles
for everting the sac, and for closing or opening the orifice, have in
some cases been developed. The development of these organs is
intelligible through sexual selection, if the most odoriferous males are
the most successful in winning the females, and in leaving offspring to
inherit their gradually perfected glands and colors.”
There is sometimes a difference in the mammals in the hair of the two
sexes both in amount and in color. In some species of goats the males
have a beard, in others it is present in both sexes. The bull, but not
the cow, has curly hair on the forehead. In some monkeys the beard is
confined to the male, as in the orang; in other species it is only
larger in the males.
“The males of various members of the ox family (Bovidæ), and of certain
antelopes, are furnished with a dewlap, or great fold of skin on the
neck, which is much less developed in the female.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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