ARTIODACTYLA. RUMINANTIA, 



589 



There are no horns in the young, but they make their appearance in the 

 first year in a simple form, becoming, in the species which have branched 

 antlers, more complicated and branched at each subsequent year until 

 complete matvirity is attained. The main stem of the antler beyond the 

 burr is called the beam ; the part below the burr is the pedicle ; the branches 

 of the beam are called the tines or snags. The teeth are brachyodont, the 

 neck being from the first on a level with the alveolar border. Upper 

 canines are usually present in both sexes. The magnum and trapezoid are 

 fused, as are usually cuneiform 2 and 3, cuneiform 1 remaining separate. 

 The outer digits of the feet are usually present though small, their meta- 

 podia being reduced, and either separate or fused w'th the cannon 

 bone. The placenta has few cotyledons, and there is no gall-bladder 

 (except in Moschus). There are 11 genera, and about 60 species, 

 present all over the world except in the Australian 

 and Ethiopian regions. Moschus L., musk deer, without 

 horns, upper canines large, lateral hoofs of pes well de- 

 veloped ; musk gland on the abdomen of the male only, 

 opening in front of the prepuce ; highlands of C. and E. 

 As. Cervulus de Blainv., muntjacs, hoofs but not the 

 bones of the lateral digits present ; S. and E. Asia and 

 islands ; 53 species. Elaphodus M. Edw., China. Cervus 

 L., deer proper, 22 species, one species C. canadensis, the 

 wapiti, in the Neartic region, the rest Palaearctic and 

 Oriental ; C. elaphus the red-deer, C. dama the fallow 

 deer. C. gigantetis, extinct Irish-elk ; the genus appears 

 in the Pliocene. Rangifer H. Smith (Tarandus Ogilby), 

 reindeer, both sexes with antlers, arctic, circumpolar. 

 Alces H. Smith, the elk or moose, arctic, circumpolar. 

 Cervalces Scott, extinct. Pleistocene of N. Amer. Cap- 

 reolus H. Smith, Eur. and C. Asia ; probably 1 species, 

 C. caprea the roe-deer. Hydropotes Swinhoe, water-deer, 

 without antlers, with large upper canines, China. Cariacus 

 Gray, N. and S. Amer., about 20 species. Pudua Gray, 

 Chilian Andes, and Patagonia, 2 species. 



Several extinct genera are known in Europe frcm 

 the Lower Miocene onwards. In the oldest Miocene 

 forms horns are absent, e.g. Palaeomeryx v. Meyer, Amphi- 

 tragulus Pomel, and the earliest deer with horns is Dicro- 

 cerus Lartet from the Middle Miocene. In the later forms the horns are 

 said to increase in complexity as the present time is approached. But this 

 statement, like so many others of the same kind will not'*} bear close 

 examination, for the stag with the most elaborate antlers known {Cervus 

 Sedgwickii) is from the Pliocene. All we can at present affirm is that the 

 Miocene deer so far discovered are without horns or have only simple 

 horns. 



Fam. 12. GirafTidae.* The living forms have long limbs (the anterior 

 being the longest), long necks, and are usually provided with horns, which 

 are covered by the ordinary skin and thus differ from the horns of all other 

 Artiodactyls. The horns have a bony core, usually placed over the suture 

 between the parietal and frontal bones, at first separate from the skull, 

 but later ankylosing with it. They are present in both sexes and in the 



jv m 



Fig. 308. — Ma- 

 nus of red- 

 deer (Cervus 

 elaphus) x i. 



Falconer, op. cit., 1S6S, Forsyth Major, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1891, p. 315. 



