300 ANATOMY OF MOSCHUS ‘ CHAP. 
metacarpals, are of the more ancient type represented in <Alces, 
Hydropotes, etc. A gall-bladder is present. The young, as 
in so many Cervidae are spotted; but the adult is of a greyish- 
brown colour. 
Fie. 158.—Musk Deer. Moschus moschiferus. x43. (From Nature.) 
There is no doubt that J/oschus is more nearly related to 
the Cervidae than to any other Ruminants. It is regarded 
by Sir W. Flower as “an undeveloped deer—an animal which 
in most points (absence of horns, smooth brain, retention of 
gall-bladder, ete.) has ceased to progress with the rest of the 
group, While in some few (musk gland, mobile feet) it has taken 
a special line of advance of its own.” . 
The musk itself, which gives its name to the creature, is 
found in a gland on the belly, about the size of a hen’s egg. 
The whole gland is cut out and sold in this condition. Such 
quantities of musk deer have been and are killed for this purpose 
that the rarity of the animal is increasing. In the seventeenth 
