XXXI. IO-II 



DEER 



757 



valued musk of the male is a pre-putial gland, in the form of a sac. 

 The true deer, Cervidae, have developed antlers in the males (Fig. 

 502), bony growths shed each year and forming progressively more 

 branches as the animal grows 

 older (Fig. 503). In the reindeer 

 the females also have antlers. A 

 sign of the rather primitive nature 

 of the deer is the retention of 

 definite rudiments of the first two 

 phalanges of the lateral digits. 

 The molars are brachydont, but 

 the placenta cotyledonary as in 

 bovidae. The deer (Fig. 504) 

 have been common since the 

 Pliocene, as browsing animals of 

 the forests of the Holarctic region 

 and South America, but not 

 Africa. They live in herds with 

 an elaborate social organization, 

 based on the supremacy of a 

 leading male, maintained by a suc- 

 cession of 'fights' with his rivals. 

 These fights are very fierce, but 

 do not necessarily result in death, 

 and indeed the complicated horns 

 interlock in such a way as to 

 mitigate their danger to the chal- 

 lenger. Red deer (Cervus elaphus) 

 are still wild in Britain in Scot- 

 land, the Lake District, Exmoor, 

 and the New Forest. The antlers 

 have six or more points. Roe deer 

 (Caproelus) have smaller antlers (three points). They are also indigenous 

 in Great Britain; fallow deer (Dama) have been introduced, and are 

 usually spotted, with palmate antlers. 



1 1 . Giraffidae 



The giraffes (Fig. 505), like the Cervidae, from which they diverged 

 in the Miocene, are browsing animals, now restricted to tropical 

 Africa. The teeth are low-crowned and the head bears up to five 

 simple skin-covered bony prongs in both sexes. This has been held to 



1st year 



Fig. 503. Series of antlers in the British 



Museum (Natural History) showing the 



increasing number of tines in successive 



years. (After Romanes.) 



