Although the horns of stags are efficient weapons, there can, I think, be no doubt that a single point would have been much more dangerous than a branched antler; and Judge Caton, who has had large experience with deer, fully concurs in this conclusion. Nor do the branching horns, though highly important as a means of defence against rival stags, appear perfectly well adapted for this purpose, as they are liable to become interlocked. The suspicion has therefore crossed my mind that they may serve partly as ornaments. That the branched antlers of stags, as well as the elegant lyrated horns of certain antelopes, with their graceful double curvature, (fig. 62), are ornamental in our eyes, no one will dispute. If, then, the horns, like the splendid accoutrements of the knights of old, add to the noble appearance of stags and antelopes, they may have been partly modified for this purpose, though mainly for actual service in battle; but I have no evidence in favour of this belief. [Illustration: Fig. 62. Strepsiceros Kudu (from Andrew Smith’s ‘Zoology of South Africa’).] An interesting case has lately been published, from which it appears that the horns of a deer in one district in the United States are now being modified through sexual and natural selection. A writer in an excellent American Journal[310] says, that he has hunted for the last twenty-one years in the Adirondacks, where the _Cervus Virginianus_ abounds. About fourteen years ago he first heard of _spike-horn bucks_. These became from year to year more common; about five years ago he shot one, and subsequently another, and now they are frequently killed. “The spike-horn differs greatly from the common antler of the _C. Virginianus_. It consists of a single spike, more slender than the antler, and scarcely half so long, projecting forward from the brow, and terminating in a very sharp point. It gives a considerable advantage to its possessor over the common buck. Besides enabling him to run more swiftly through the thick woods and underbrush (every hunter knows that does and yearling bucks run much more rapidly than the large bucks when armed with their cumbrous antlers), the spike-horn is a more effective weapon than the common antler. With this advantage the spike-horn bucks are gaining upon the common bucks, and may, in time, entirely supersede them in the Adirondacks. Undoubtedly the first spike-horn buck was merely an accidental freak of nature. But his spike-horns gave him an advantage, and enabled him to propagate his peculiarity. His descendants, having a like advantage, have propagated the peculiarity in a constantly increasing ratio, till they are slowly crowding the antlered deer from the region they inhabit.”