464 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



river east of the point where the Vaksh enters it. ... It is a wild locality, 

 uninhabited, and impenetrable for the greater portion of the year. Further 

 up the valley the stags roam as far as Kulab ; beyond this the mountains hem 

 in the river and allow no suitable ground. Whether or not these deer extend 

 the whole length of the Oxus as far as the Sea of Aral I cannot say. Severtzoff 

 mentions finding such a beast on the lower course of the Syr Daria, which I 

 imagine must have been of this variety. 



Nazaroff (1932, p. 208) refers to the occurrence of a large deer in 

 the steppes about Lake Balkash, which is quite distinct from the 

 Siberian Maral. Possibly this is bactrianus. 



W. G. Heptner writes (in litt., December, 1936) that this animal 

 has a very limited distribution. It is met with near the sources of the 

 Amu Darya, along the Vaksh, on the delta of the Amu Darya and 

 the adjacent part of the desert, and about the mouth of the Syr 

 Darya. The total number is very inconsiderable, but along the 

 upper Amu Darya it is common at certain places. Hunting is 

 strictly forbidden. 



White-lipped Deer; Thorold's Deer. Weisslippenhirsch (Ger.) 



CERVUS ALBIROSTRIS Przewalski 



Cervus albirostris Przewalski, Third Journey in Central Asia [St.- Peters- 

 burg], p. 124, 1883 (in Russian), and Reisen in Tibet [Jena], pp. 73, 76, 

 fig., 1884. (River Koko-su, left tributary of River Dan-kho, in the 

 western ramifications of the Humboldt Mountains, Nan Shan, near the 

 Kansu-Tibet boundary.) 



SYNONYM: Cervus thoroldi Blanford (1893). 



FIGS.: Przewalski, 1883, pi. facing p. 124; Prschewalski, 1884, p. 76, fig.; Sclater, 

 Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, vol. 58, pt. 2, pi. 11, 1889; Blanford, Proc. 

 Zool. Soc. London 1893, pi. 34; Lydekker, 18986, pi. 5, and 1915, vol. 4, 

 p. 150, fig. 28; China Jour., vol. 25, no. 5, pis. following p. 288, 1936; 

 Schafer, 1937, pis. facing pp. 160, 161; Engelmann, 1938, pis. 21, 22. 



This little-known and much persecuted deer, inhabiting high 

 mountain areas from the Nan Shan to eastern Tibet and western 

 Szechwan, is considered in danger of extinction. 



It is a large species, standing 51 inches high at the shoulder, and 

 with a length of about 7 feet from the tip of the muzzle to the base 

 of the tail. The general color is snuff brown (Ridgway) in summer, 

 wood brown in winter; abdomen lighter than pinkish buff; a large, 

 sharply defined rump patch, near sayal brown; area about nose, lips, 

 chin, and throat white; facial area darker than the general color; 

 coarse hair of the withers directed forward, forming a kind of hump. 

 Antlers much flattened, nearly white, with a single brow tine; bend- 

 ing suddenly backward at origin of third tine; length round the 

 outside curve, 38 inches. Female grayer than the male, and lacking 

 the dark facial area. (Flerov, 1930, pp. 116-120; Lydekker, 1915, 

 vol. 4, p. 149; Schafer, 1937, pis. facing pp. 160, 161.) G. M. Allen 



