Word: unicorn
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...reference to article in TIME, May 4, under Science, regarding Dr. Dove's unicorn bull...
Enclosed herein is a snapshot of a freak sheep that may be termed a "Unicorn." You will note that it has a horn on the end of its nose. This is a three-year-old ewe (female sheep), raised on the range in this district, Ely, Nev. The picture was taken in April 1936 and shows the animal after shearing. It's a freak and not a transplanted horn. Presumed the picture would be of interest to you. D. A. HUGHES...
...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...
...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...