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



alarm, so as to produce a large subcircular disk. Another very character- 

 istic feature of these extremely handsome and striking deer is the profuse 

 spotting with white of the summer coat, which is some shade of rufous or 

 fawn. In winter this brilliant garb is generally replaced by a more sombre- 

 coloured dress, of which the prevailing hue is blackish brown in most of 

 the species, and when in this dress the white spots are usually either 

 more or less inconspicuous or totally wanting. The difference in colour 

 between a red deer when in the summer coat and the same animal in its 

 winter dress is striking enough, hut it is nothing compared to the change 

 which takes place in the appearance ot a sika, especially the Pekin species, 

 when the garb of one season is exchanged for that of the other. In 

 summer we have an animal much more brilliantly coloured than the 

 spotted variety of the fallow deer, while in winter the same animal will 

 be as dully clad as the black phase of the latter species. Nor is this 

 change the only conspicuous transformation to which the sikas are subject. 

 When standing undisturbed in the posture of the stag represented in 

 the photograph on page 233 (Fig. 55), the pure white rump-patch 

 forms a comparatively inconspicuous feature. Startle the animal so as 

 to make it bound off" with its characteristic long leaps, and the compara- 

 tively inconspicuous patch suddenly expands into a large radiating disk ot 

 dazzling white which almost completely conceals the rest ot the hind- 

 quarters from view. The transformation is indeed so sudden, and to the 

 uninitiated so unexpected, that it appears almost startling. The tail is 

 much longer than in the red deer group. 



Another distinctive feature of the sikas is the bright red hue ot the 

 velvet of the growing antlers of the bucks ; this brilliant tint being 

 relieved by black at the tip of each tine. When in their brilliant summer 

 coats, with the full-grown antlers still invested in their covering ot red and 

 black velvet, the stags of all the species of the group are indeed wonder- 

 tully handsome deer. 



