CUA1>. I.] 



ELK. 



157 



rials of his long captivity, is the small "nuisk deer"^ 

 so called in India, although neither sex is provided with 

 a musk-bag ; and the Europeans in Ceylon know it by 

 the name of the moose deer. Its extreme length never 

 reaches two feet ; and of those which were domesticated 

 about my house, few exceeded ten inches in height, 

 therr graceful hmbs being of similar dehcate propor- 

 tion. It possesses long and extremely large tusks, with 

 which it inflicts a severe bite. The interpreter moodhar 

 of Negombo had a milk white meminna in 1847, which 

 he designed to send home as an acceptable present to 

 Her Majesty, but it was unfortunately killed by an 

 accident.^ 



Ceylon Elk. — In the mountains, the Ceylon elk ^, 

 which reminds one of the red deer of Scotland, attains 

 the heis2;ht of foirr or five feet : it abounds in all 

 places wliich are intersected by shady rivers ; where, 

 though its hunting affords an endless resource to the 

 sportsmen, its venison scarcely equals in quahty the 

 inferior beef of the loAvland ox. In the glades and 

 park-hke openings that diversify the great forests of the 

 interior, the spotted Axis troops in herds as numerous 

 as the faUow deer in England ; and, in journeys through 

 the jungle, when often dependent on the guns of our 

 party for the precarious supply of the table, we found 

 the flesh of the Axis* and the Muntjac^ a sorry substi- 

 tute for tliat of the pea-fowl, the jungle-cock, and 

 flamingo. The occiu-rence of albinos is very frequent 



* Moschus meminna. 



^ AMien tlie English took possession 

 of Kandy, in 1803, they foimd " five 

 beautiful milk-white deer in the 

 palace, which was noted as a very 

 extraordinary thing." — Letter in Ap- 

 pendix to Pekcival's Ceylon, p. 428. 

 The wTiter does not say of what 

 species they were. 



^ Rusa Aristotelis. Dr. Gkat has 

 lately shown that this is the great 

 a.nsoi Cuvier. — Oss. Fuss. 502, t. 30, 

 f. 10. The Singhalese, on following 



the elk, frequently eifect their ap- 

 proaches by so imitating the call of 

 the animal as to induce them to re- 

 spond. An instance occm-red during 

 my residence in Ceylon, in which two 

 natives, whose mimicry had mutually 

 deceived them, crept so close toge- 

 ther in the jmigle that one shot the 

 other, supposing the cry to proceed 

 from the game. 



2 Axis maculata, H. Smith. 



^ Stylocerus mimtjac, Ilorsf. 



