JO Game of Europe, W. & N. Asia & America 



THE MANCHURIAN WAPITI, OR DUKE OF BEDFORD'S 



DEER 



(^Ci'rvi/s canadensis xafjthopygus) 



This handsome deer has, it must be confessed, been somewhat hardly 

 treated by naturalists, on account of the number of names it has received, 

 and the conflicting views that have been entertained with regard to its 

 affinities. It was originally named Cervas xanthopygus by the late Professor 

 Milne-Edwards, on the evidence of a young stag (probably in its fourth 

 year) obtained in Manchuria by the traveller Monsieur Fontanier, and 

 transmitted by him to the Paris Museum, where it is still preserved. In a 

 coloured figure of the type specimen subsequently published by its de- 

 scriber [Rcchcrchcs Mam mi feres, plate xxi.), the tail is unfortunately made 

 much too long, which gives an erroneous idea of the affinities ot the animal. 

 Moreover, when referring to this specimen in the Deer of All Lands (page 

 8i), the writer fell into the error of regarding it as an old animal with 

 retrograding antlers. In the year 1880, Dr. Bolau, of Hamburg, described a 

 wapiti-like deer from Northern or Eastern Manchuria as a new species under 

 the name of Cerviis li/edorji ; and in 1889 the same deer was very unneces- 

 sarily renamed Cervi/s isiibra by Dr. Noack, isubra being its vernacular title 

 in the land of its birth. 



In the year 1896 the present writer described a stag then living in the 

 Duke of Bedford's park at Woburn Abbey under the name of Cerviis hed- 

 fordianus ; the shortness oi its tail being one of the reasons for separating it 

 from C. xanthopygus, as figured by Milne-Edwards. 



In the Deer of All Lands this so-called C. hedfordianus was, however, 

 identified with C. xanthopygus, which was regarded as entitled to rank as a 

 species by itself And it was then proposed that, in the absence of any 

 other English name, it should be known as the Duke of Bedford's deer. 



