The different structure of the horns of the Bovine and Ovine Ruminants is, in my view, the result of a different mode of fighting. If we suppose that the fighting was slower and less fierce in the Bovidae, so that the skin over the exostosis was subject to friction but not lacerated, the result would be a thickening of the horny layer of the epidermis as we find it, and the fact that the skin and periosteum are not destroyed explains why the horns are not shed but permanent. There is a tendency among Mendelians and mutationists to overestimate the importance of experiments in comparison with reasoning, either inductive or deductive. Bateson, however, has admitted that Mendelian experiments and observations on mutation have not solved the problem of adaptation. It seems to be demanded, nevertheless, that characters must be produced experimentally and then inherited before the hereditary influence of external stimuli can be accepted. Kammerer's experiments in this direction have been sceptically criticised, and it must be granted that the evidence he has published is not sufficient to produce complete conviction. But experiments of this kind are from the nature of the case difficult if not impossible. There is, however, another method--namely, to take a character which is certainly to some extent hereditary, and then to ascertain by experiment if it is 'acquired.' If it be proved that a hereditary character was originally somatogenic, it follows that somatogenic characters in time become hereditary. This is the reasoning I have used in reference to my experiments on the production of pigment on the lower sides of Flat-fishes, and I obtained similar evidence with regard to the excessive growth of the tail feathers in the Japanese Tosa-fowls, [Footnote: 'Observations and Experiments on Japanese Long-tailed Fowls,' _Proc. Zool. Soc._, 1903.] which is a modification of a secondary sexual character. In these fowls the feathers of the tail in the hens are only slightly lengthened. I learned from Mr. John Sparks, who himself brought specimens of the breed from Japan, that the Japanese not only keep the birds separately on high perches in special cages, but pull the tail feathers gently every morning in order to cause them to grow longer. One question which I had to investigate on my specimens, hatched from eggs obtained from Mr. Sparks, was the relation of the growth of the feathers to the moult which occurs in ordinary birds. My experiment consisted in keeping two cocks, A and B, the first of which was left to itself, while in the second the feathers were gently pulled by stroking between the finger and thumb from the base outwards. The feathers in the tail were seven pairs of rectrices, two rows of tail coverts, anterior and posterior, four or five pairs in each row, a number of transition feathers: all these were steel-blue, almost black; in front of them on the saddle were a number of reddish yellow, very slender saddle hackles.