224 (ji^iii^' of Europe, W. & N. Asia Sc America 



Persia, this deer extends through Asia Minor into Transcaucasia and the 

 Caucasus. As mentioned above, it seems probable, althougli not certain, 

 that the red deer of the Crimea are referable to this race, while those in- 

 habiting the Galician Carpathians, Turkey, and Circassia may be in some 

 deijree intermediate between the two races, althouirh nearer to the eastern 

 than to the western. 



On this latter point tlie following quotation from the Sporf miil 'I'rdvel 

 of- Mr. Selous has an important bearing. Atter describing two good reil 

 deer heads killed in Asia Minor, the great hunter (page 109) writes as 

 follows : — 



"These heads would compare tavouralily with most Caucasian heads, 

 though 1 believe that it is in the Caucasus that the biggest ' maral ' horns 

 in existence have been obtained by Russian sportsmen and our own 

 countryman Mr. St. George Littledale. 1 am inclined to think that the 

 red deer of Roumelia and Turkey in Europe, as also the large and mighty 

 antlered race found in Galicia and Hungary, are, if not identical with the 

 (aVTV/.v niaial of Western Asia, at anv rate more nearlv allied to that species 

 than they are to the smaller and shorter-skulled red deer of the British 

 Isles. At any rate, all the skulls I have seen of deer shot in Hungary, 

 Galicia, and Turkey were very long in the face, and far more like the 

 skulls of the Asiatic maral than those of red deer from Western Europe. 

 When in condition, a good maral stag will weigh 40 stone clean, antl 

 exceptional animals probably a good deal more." 



If in this extract the word "race" be substituted for "species," the 

 views expressed are practically the same as those mentioned above. 



With regard to the distribution of the Caspian red deer in the Caucasus, 

 Dr. K. Satunin, at the date of writing the memoir' to which reference has 

 been so frequently made, does !iot appear to have had very full or definite 

 information. He says that a typical example of this deer, killetl in the 



' Zoohgische Jal.rbuch, vol. ix. p. 309 (1899). 



