ORDER ART1ODACTYLA I EVEN -TOED UNGULATES 441 



C. W. A. Bruce writes (in Lydekker, 1900, pp. 407-408) : 



The flesh is coarse and poor eating; many Burmaas will not touch it, as 

 they say it renders the eater liable to leprosy. 



Thamin are often killed by Burmans with a dah (large knife), Two men 

 go out at night, one with a light on his head (in a cooking-pot, the light 

 shining through a hole broken in the side) ; the thamin, when he sees this 

 light, stands staring at it, while the man's companion, the one armed with 

 the dah, sneaks round and hamstrings the deer. Many also are caught in huge 

 nets into which they are driven, and many in the rains are speared from 

 boats while swimming from islands left in the inundated plains. 



The Game Warden of Burma writes (in litt., November, 1936) : 

 "During the past 15 years this deer has been disappearing at an 

 alarming rate .... Government has now ordered steps to be 

 taken, for the provision of some sanctuaries for this animal and 

 at the moment two areas, one in Shwebo Forest Division and one in 

 Minbu Forest Division, are being investigated." 



Siamese Thamin; Siamese Brow-antlered Deer. 

 Lamang (Siamese) 



RUCERVUS ELDII PLATYCEROS (J. E. Gray) 



Panolia platyceros J. E. Gray, List Mammalia Brit. Mus., p. 181, 1843. (Based 

 upon "Cervus, n. s., Gray, Proc. ZooL Soc. 1837, 45"; type locality, 

 "India" = Siam.) 



SYNONYM: Cervus eldi siamensis Lydekker (1915). 



FIGS.: Blyth, Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1867, p. 841, figs. 20-23; Kloss, Jour. 

 Nat. Hist. Soc. Siam, vol. 3, pi. 8, 1919. 



Severe hunting has evidently reduced the Thamin of Siam and 

 Indo-China to a fraction of its former numbers. 



"Antlers with the main termination much flattened, a number of 

 small snags on the sharp hind edge, and the brow-tine relatively 

 short; general colour reddish at all seasons, with spots along middle 

 of back, and in some cases also on sides" (Lydekker, 1915, vol. 4, 

 p. 105). The record length of antlers on the outside curve, not 

 including the brow-tine, is 40 inches (Ward, 1935, p. 18) . 



Siam. Irwin (1914t, pp. 113-115) gives the following account: 



It undoubtedly occurs, or was found until recently, in Ratburi Province. 

 [In 1908 a herd of six was seen in the neighborhood of Chawm Bung, a swampy 

 plain at about latitude 13 40', longitude 99 35'.] 



In recent years the plain of Chawm Bung itself has been largely brought 

 under cultivation. Formerly it would have furnished an ideal haunt for these 

 deer. There has also been an enormous increase in the number of people 

 who enter this district .... The wood-cutters do a certain amount of game 

 shooting by sitting up over waterholes, and ... it seems to me probable 

 that this deer may have been almost, if not quite exterminated by now on 

 the west side of the Meklawng River by this method of shooting. . . . 



In the Province of Nakawn Chaisi . . . the "lamang" occasionally enter 

 and feed on the rice crops during the wet season. . . . 



