DEEP-SEA EXPLORATION 



condemned persons. The office was held along with 

 that "i cM-i-utiuiii-i. See Scott's notes to Old 



Mortn/iti/ ill" I 1 1 nut of Midlutluan, 



l<-'p-sra Exploration. See CHALLENGER 



K.\I'I:IMTIO\, si \, un ,i 



Deer (Cemi(ln-), a large fiunily in the ruminant 

 section of even im-,| I ululates. Though doubt- 

 less oi common ancestry, i lie an tiered ruminants 

 or deer an- .li-iinitely, though not very readily, 

 separated from tin- other great family of horned 

 niiiiin.-iMts or cattle. The common characters of 

 t '! \ id;e and Bovidie will bo noted under the title 

 KIMIN \vrs(q.v.); only the chief peculiarities of 

 the Cervidie need here be noticed. 



General Characters. If ap|>endage8 are present 

 on the head, they are true bony outgrowths, famil- 

 iarly known as antlers. Except in one genus, they 

 are confined to the males. There are two open- 

 ing* t<> the duct of the lachrymal gland, situated 

 on or inside the orbit. A large cavity in front of 

 the orbit cuts off the lachrymal bone from articula- 

 tion with the nasals. The first molar tooth is short- 

 crowned. There are usually upper canine teeth in 

 1 M it li sexes, and these are often large in the males. 

 In addition to the functional third and fourth digits, 

 the second and fifth are very generally represented. 

 The placenta has few cotyledons or villotis patches. 

 Except in Australia and Africa, the Cervidie are 

 distributed over the globe, usually living in pairs or 

 herds in wooded and grassy regions, and feeding 

 upon herbage. About 100 living and extinct species 

 are known. 



Genera. Dr J. E. Gray classified the Cervidoe 

 into two groups, according to the position of a hair- 

 tuft on the lower part of the hind-leg. Professor 

 (iarrod has divided them according to features in 

 the skull ; Sir V. Brooke has classified them accord- 

 ing to the state of the limbs. In their general out- 

 lines the three classifications agree ; that of Brooke 

 is here followed. 



A. Upper ends of the second and fifth metacarpals 

 remain Plesiometacarpi e.g. Cervus. B. Lower 

 ends of the metacarpals remain Telemetacarpi ; 

 within which the three genera Alces, Hydropotes, 

 and Capreolus are separated by other characters 

 from a more definite section, including Cariacus, 

 Pudua, and Rangifer. 



Important Forms. As many of the important 

 deer will be separately discussed under their com- 

 mon names, a list of the distinctive types is all that 

 is here necessary. A. Ccrvultis muntj'of, from 

 British India and the Malayan region, with large 

 canines in the males (see MUNTJAK) ; Elaphodus, 

 with very small unbranched antlers ; Rusa, a sub- 

 genus of Cervus, from the Indian region, including 

 some of the largest and smallest species e.g. C. 

 aristotelis, C. equinns ; Rucervus, another Indian 

 sub-genus, with forms of small stature e.g. C. 

 schoniburyki ; Elaplmrus, Axis (q.v. ), Pseudaxis, 

 other sub-genera of Cervus ; the genus Cervus, in 

 the restricted sense, large deer in Pahearctic and 

 Nearctic regions, including the Red Deer (q.v.), 

 or Cerotts elaphus, in Britain, Continental Europe, 

 Algeria, Asia Minor, and the Caucasus, and C. 

 canadenns, in North America ; Dama, another 

 sub-genus, including forms of medium size, from 

 south-western Paliearctic regions e.g. the Fallow- 

 deer (q.v.), semi-domesticated in European parks. 

 B. (1) The northern genus Alces, including the 

 Elk (q.v.), of large size, with great antlers; the 

 Water-deer (q.v.), or Hydropotes, without antlers 

 in either sex ; the genus Capreolus, including 

 the small Roe-deer (q.v.) (Capreolus capnea), in 

 Britain, Europe, North Palestine, &c. (2) The 

 genus Cariacus, in its strict usage, including the 

 Virginian Deer of the United States (C. vinjini- 

 anus) and the Mexican Deer(C. Mexican us ); the 



of CariaciiM Hhutoceruii, Fun-if- r, 

 UK, from South Ameiica : I'udiw, from the 

 Chilian Ande* ; and the Reindeer (q.v.), or Jian- 

 gijer, with antler* in both Hexes. 



Antlers. Antler* are usually present in the male 

 deer, though absent in both sexes in Hydro|ot-, 

 and I.IV-.-MI in Ixitli in the reindeer. Their nature 

 as true bony outgrowth**, their early covering with 

 M-nsitive vascular skin or velvet, the drying of thin 

 to leave the horn a hard and iiienitiv<- wen|*>n, 

 the basal constriction and detachment, an- 1 the 

 regrowth in the following year, have been already 

 referred to in the article ANTLEK8 (q.v.). The 

 different parts receive technical names, but it i* 

 only necessary to note the permanent ' pedicle ' or 

 stalk from which the regrowth .-i ;u t -. the main stem 

 or 'beam,' the branches, 'tines, or 'snags,' and the 

 not infrequent flattened or ' palmate ' form. Antlers 

 are of special importance as weapons used by the 

 males in fighting for the possession of the females, 

 and have doubtless been perfected by Sexual Selec- 

 tion ( q.v. ). They are also of interest in the parallel 

 they illustrate between the life-history of the indi- 

 vidual and the evolution of the race. The figure 

 given of antlers at successive years in a stag's life 



will also suit for the evolution of antlers in succes- 

 sive historic periods. Young deer develop in the 

 first year small simple antlers, and the branches are 

 added on the annual regrowths. So the earliest 

 ( Lower Miocene ) deer had no antlers, the Middle 

 Miocene species had simple, at most two-branche 

 processes, as in the second year of life, while in 

 the Upper Miocene three branches occur ; and in 

 Pliocene and Pleistocene the modern luxuriance 

 gradually appeavs. Sir V. Brooke gives full details 

 ( 1 ) of the gradual evolution of antler* from very 

 simple to complex forms, tracing the history from 

 the earliest Dremotheriuin onwards ; (2) of their 

 constant tendency to van', as is well known in the 

 semi-domesticated species; (3) of 'variation ex- 

 tending far enough to induce the partial atrophy 

 of one part of tYie antler to compensate for the 

 extra development of some other part ; ' (4) of the 

 transmission and establishing of such variations 

 \)y heredity. A g^eat part of the theory of evolu- 

 tion can be beautifully rend from antlers alone. 



The flesh, skin, ami antler- of deer are valuable, 

 hut deer injure crops, eat the leave*, twig*, and 

 bark of trees, ami damage forest trees by rubbing 

 their antlers against the trunk* and branches. 



See articles on the various kinds of Deer ( RED Dm, 

 &c.), DKKK FOHEST*, <;AMK LAWS, POACHING, STAO- 

 HOUND ; Sir V. Brooke in Prof. Jfool. Soe. ( 1878) ; J. G. 

 Millaitt, British Detr and their Horni (1807). 



Deer* OLD, a village of Buchan, Aberdeen- 

 shire, 36 miles N. of Aberdeen. Here, altout 680 

 \. u.. St Columlia (q.v.) and Drostan, his nephew, 

 established a monastery, which William Comyn, 

 Earl of Budmn. rcfounded al*>ut 1219 for Cistercian 

 monks. Little remains of the monastic buildings ; 

 but in 1715 a Latin MS., a small octavo of 86 

 pages, which had belonged to the monks of Deer, 

 found its way to the Cambridge University Library, 



