Tusks and horns are manifestly of high importance to their possessors, for their development consumes much organised matter. A single tusk of the Asiatic elephant,—one of the extinct woolly species,—and of the African elephant, have been known to weigh respectively 150, 160, and 180 pounds; and even greater weights have been assigned by some authors.[316] With deer, in which the horns are periodically renewed, the drain on the constitution must be greater; the horns, for instance, of the moose weigh from fifty to sixty pounds, and those of the extinct Irish elk from sixty to seventy pounds,—the skull of the latter weighing on an average only five and a quarter pounds. With sheep, although the horns are not periodically renewed, yet their development, in the opinion of many agriculturists, entails a sensible loss to the breeder. Stags, moreover, in escaping from beasts of prey are loaded with an additional weight for the race, and are greatly retarded in passing through a woody country. The moose, for instance, with horns extending five and a half feet from tip to tip, although so skilful in their use that he will not touch or break a dead twig when walking quietly, cannot act so dexterously whilst rushing away from a pack of wolves. “During his progress he holds his nose up, so as to lay the horns horizontally back; and in this attitude cannot see the ground distinctly.”[317] The tips of the horns of the great Irish elk were actually eight feet apart! Whilst the horns are covered with velvet, which lasts with the red-deer for about twelve weeks, they are extremely sensitive to a blow; so that in Germany the stags at this time change their habits to a certain extent, and avoid dense forests, frequenting young woods and low thickets.[318] These facts remind us, that male birds have acquired ornamental plumes at the cost of retarded flight, and other ornaments at the cost of some loss of power in their battles with rival males.