INTRODUCTION 



In the preparation of this volume I have not had the valuable 

 assistance of Mr. Blaine, who, for the first portion of the 

 period, was away on a hunting-trip in Africa, and during tlie 

 remainder was serving his King and country in the war. 



As in the case of the previous volumes, I am greatly 

 indebted to Mr. 0. Thomas for reading the proofs, and using 

 his unrivalled knowledge of individual specimens and their 

 localities to correct errors which had crept into the text. In 

 the present volume my debt to him is still greater, for being 

 myself incapacitated by illness from coming to London 

 during the time the proofs were passing through the press, 

 the drudgery of filling up omissions in the references to 

 literature fell to his share. 



It may be added that I cannot but regret the appearance 

 in the text of such ugly, ungrammatical, or absurd terms as 

 "tunjuc," " Odocoileus,"- * and " Hippocamelus," f — terms 

 which would never have been admitted by the past generation 

 of naturalists, from whose instruction and writings I derived 

 the basis of my zoological knowledge. According, however, 

 to modern views on nomenclature — views largely attribut- 

 able to the decline in the study of the classics characteristic 

 of the present age — such usage is practically compulsory. 

 In one case, however, namely, that of the Kashmir stag, I 

 could not bring myself to replace a classically-formed name 

 by one of these ill-sounding barbarisms. 



E. LYDEKKEE. 



March 10th, 191.5. 



* Applied to a subfossil deer's tooth, which, in the then state of 

 knowledge, should have been described as Ccrviis. 



t Given on the supposition that the Chilian guemal was inter- 

 mediate between a horse and a llama. 



