Unicorn

There was a time when horns supposed to be those of the fantastic unicorn sold for $12,000 to $150,000 apiece. A powdered bit of genuine unicorn horn was considered the most potent remedy a medieval physician could prescribe. On at least one occasion the tip of a unicorn horn was administered to a dying Pope (TIME, Feb. 25, 1935). Unicorns are described in legends far back into the mists of antiquity. Many men boasted of having seen the creature. All agreed that he was a proud and mighty beast, too wise and fleet to let himself be caught, and that a single fine sharp horn grew from his forehead. In the Middle Ages it was believed that if a unicorn saw a virgin he would approach gently, lay his head in her lap.

When scientific explorations in every land had left no possible dwelling place for the splendid unicorn, he was reluctantly relegated to the limbo of legend. But there were stories that cattle and other animals had been made to grow a single big horn by cutting their scalps and manipulating their horn buds. In 1827 famed Naturalist Georges Cuvier said that this was impossible, since the horn buds were integral parts of the animal's skull, and the frontal part of the skull was divided by a suture where it would be impossible for transplanted horns to grow.

Last week in Scientific Monthly, Biologist William Franklin Dove of the University of Maine showed that Cuvier was wrong. Dr. Dove's own researches had revealed that at birth the horn buds were not attached to the skull but were independent "centres of ossification." Accordingly, he decided to try making a unicorn of a day-old Ayrshire. Flaps of skin containing the horn cores were cut out and the cores were joined in the centre, at the top end of the suture in the bone.

That calf is now a fine 2-year-old Ayrshire bull. From the top of its head projects a single prodigious horn (see cut). Dr. Dove describes the character of his artificial unicorn thus: "True in spirit as in horn to his prototype, he is conscious of peculiar power. ... He recognizes the power of a single horn which he uses as a prow to pass under fences and barriers in his path, or as a forward thrusting bayonet in his attacks. And, to invert the beatitude, his ability to inherit the earth gives him the virtues of meekness. Consciousness of power makes him docile."

Dr. Dove points out that, 19 centuries ago, Pliny described almost the same method of creating artificial unicorns. The Maine biologist concludes that the bright myth of the unicorn may not have arisen solely from man's unaided imagination but from artful transplantation by ancient shepherds, who created single-horned animals to serve as dominant and easily distinguished leaders of their herds.

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