DEER. 381 



and Cariacus, the last of which comprises all the North American 

 deer north of the Mexican boundary, with the exception of the 

 Canada stag or wapiti (Cervus Canadensis), the moose (Alces mach- 

 lis) and reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), the last two of which are cir- 

 cumpolar, and inhabit the whole northern portion of the Eurasiatic 

 continent, from Norway to China. The European forms are com- 

 prised under the three groups Cervus, which includes the stag or 

 red-deer (C. elaphus), whose range embraces, or until recently em- 

 braced, the whole of Europe and a large part of Northern Asia ; 

 Dama, the fallow-deer, a native of the Mediterranean districts of 

 Europe, Asia, and Africa; and Capreolus, the roe, which was at 

 one time extensively distributed over nearly the whole of Europe, 

 with the exception of the greater part of Russia. Among the bet- 

 ter-known Asiatic forms are Axis (peninsula of India, Ceylon, China) 

 and Rusa, the latter containing some of the largest of the cervine 

 tribe, several species of which inhabit the hotter regions of Hither 

 and Farther India, and the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. The 

 muntjacs (Cervulus), which seem to connect the true deer with the 

 musks, inhabit the forest tracts of the Oriental region, from India 

 to China, and from Formosa to the Philippines, Java, and Bor- 

 neo. 



The earliest cervine animals, in the strict sense of the term, with 

 which we are acquainted, are met with in the Middle Miocene de- 

 posits of France and Germany, where forms showing evident rela- 

 tionship with the muntjacs, and possessing the simplest kind of horn 

 structure a simple bifurcated stem have been variously described 

 as Procervulus, Prox, Dicrocerus, Palseomeryx, and Micromeryx. 

 These are all united by Rutimeyer into the one genus Palaeomeryx, 

 to which is also added the supposed differing Dremotherium from 

 the same, and a possibly lower (Lower Miocene), horizon. Of equiv- 

 alent age is the hornless Amphitragulus. The progressive devel- 

 opment from the simple- formed antler to the more complex has 

 been traced through numerous forms of Cervus from the Upper 

 Miocene to the Post-Pliocene, the most complex structure known 

 being that exhibited by C. dicranios, from the Pliocene of the Val 

 d'Arno, Tuscany. Professor Boyd Dawkins thus sums up his ob- 

 servations on this point : "We may gather from the study of the 

 fossil Cervidse the important fact that in the Middle Miocene age 

 the cervine antler consisted of a simple forked crown only. la 



