Game Animals of India, etc. 



disturber of its haunts — a habit which too often leads 

 to its destruction. The creature that has thus bounded 

 off is a musk-deer, which has either been gathering a 

 meal from the dead grass buried beneath the snow or 

 the lichens growing on the surrounding tree-stems, or 

 has been sleeping in its " form." For musk-deer, like 

 hares, appear to have regular resting-places, in which 

 they lie up for the greater part of the day, being 

 mainly nocturnal in their habits. Although the birch- 

 forests and the higher portion of the pine-zone form 

 their principal haunts in Kashmir, they may be seen 

 farther eastwards at considerably lower levels, at times 

 even among the rhododendron-forests, which in spring 

 clothe the sides of many of the outer Himalayan valleys 

 with a blaze of colour. 



Musk-deer appear enabled to maintain a firm foot- 

 hold on smooth and slippery boulders or faces of 

 rock by means of the peculiar conformation of their 

 hoofs, which are unlike those of other ruminants. As 

 already mentioned, the lateral hoofs, which are more or 

 less completely rudimentary in most ruminants (if not 

 altogether wanting, as in the pala antelope and the 

 giraffe), in the musk-deer vie in length and mobility 

 with the main pair ; and it would seem that by widely 

 spreading these hoofs a grasp of the surface of the rock 

 is obtained. These large lateral hoofs also appear to 

 act as a kind of break, by preventing the animal from 

 slipping when descending a frozen snow-slope, or an 

 inclined face of rock. In the fore-legs the toe-bones 

 supporting the lateral hoofs are supplied with special 

 muscles and tendons which have become aborted by 

 disuse in most other ruminants. 



The food of the musk-deer varies, it seems, according 

 to season, probably including dried grass and lichens 

 during the winter, and leaves of trees and flowers in 

 summer. When wounded or captured musk-deer 

 often utter piercing screams, but under ordinary 

 circumstances they are comparatively silent, although 



270 



