Chapter 17

WITH mammals the male appears to win the female much more through the law of battle than through the display of his charms. The most timid animals, not provided with any special weapons for fighting, engage in desperate conflicts during the season of love. Two male hares have been seen to fight together until one was killed; male moles often fight, and sometimes with fatal results; male squirrels engage in frequent contests, "and often wound each other severely"; as do male beavers, so that "hardly a skin is without scars."* I observed the same fact with the hides of the guanacoes in Patagonia; and on one occasion several were so absorbed in fighting that they fearlessly rushed close by me. Livingstone speaks of the males of the many animals in southern Africa as almost invariably shewing the scars received in former contests.

* See Waterton's account of two hares fighting, Zoologist, vol. i., 1843, p. 211. On moles, Bell, Hist. of British Quadrupeds, 1st ed., p. 100. On squirrels, Audubon and Bachman, Viviparous Quadrupeds of N. America, 1846, p. 269. On beavers, Mr. A. H. Green, in Journal of Linnean Society, Zoology, vol. x., 1869, p. 362.

The law of battle prevails with aquatic as with terrestrial mammals. It is notorious how desperately male seals fight, both with their teeth and claws, during the breeding-season; and their hides are likewise often covered with scars. Male sperm-whales are very jealous at this season; and in their battles "they often lock their jaws together, and turn on their sides and twist about"; so that their lower jaws often become distorted.*

* On the battles of seals, see Capt. C. Abbott in Proc. Zool. Soc., 1868, p. 191; Mr. R. Brown, ibid., 1868, p. 436; also L. Lloyd, Game Birds of Sweden, 1867, p. 414; also Pennant. On the sperm-whale see Mr. J. H. Thompson, in Proc. Zool. Soc., 1867, p. 246.

All male animals which are furnished with special weapons for fighting, are well known to engage in fierce battles. The courage and the desperate conflicts of stags have often been described; their skeletons have been found in various parts of the world, with the horns inextricably locked together, shewing how miserably the victor and vanquished had perished.* No animal in the world is so dangerous as an elephant in "must". Lord Tankerville has given me a graphic description of the battles between the wild bulls in Chillingham Park, the descendants, degenerated in size but not in courage, of the gigantic Bos primigenius. In 1861 several contended for mastery; and it was observed that two of the younger bulls attacked in concert the old leader of the herd, overthrew and disabled him, so that he was believed by the keepers to be lying mortally wounded in a neighbouring wood. But a few days afterwards one of the young bulls approached the wood alone; and then the "monarch of the chase," who had been lashing himself up for vengeance, came out and, in a short time, killed his