384 DEER GROUP 



photograph. In the letter quoted above Major Powell-Cotton has, 

 however, stated that, so far as he could ascertain, the first European 

 to see a live okapi was Mr. Jeannet, a young Swiss official of the Congo 

 Government, and he gave the date as the spring of 1905. A few 

 days subsequent to Major Cotton's communication (September 29, 

 1906), the Times gave the substance of a letter from Colonel J. J. 

 Harrison, in which that gentleman affirmed that he had the good luck 

 to see one in 1904, when hunting on the Welle. 



Those readers desirous of further information about the okapi 

 should consult a memoir by Sir E. R. Lankester in vol. xvi. of the 

 Transactions of the Zoological Society (1902), and a larger one by 

 Mr. J. Fraipont published in the Annales of the Congo Museum in 

 1907. 



THE RED DEER 



(Cervus elapJius] 

 Al wassi, ALGERIAN ARABIC ; Fertassa, TUNISIAN 



Although Africa south of the Sahara and the northern tropic is 

 characterised by the total absence of the deer-tribe, or Cervidce, there 

 occur in the north-western districts of the continent two representatives 

 of that group, which are evidently outlying members of the European 

 fauna, being, in fact, at best nothing more than local races of European 

 species, and thus serving, in connection with the rest of the fauna, to 

 demonstrate the existence of a recent land-connection between north- 

 western Africa and south-western Europe. Under these circumstances 

 a slight notice of the two species in question will suffice. 



Deer, it may be mentioned, may be distinguished from the giraffe 

 family by the fact that the crowns of the outermost pair of lower 

 front teeth are simple and undivided, as is shown in the figure on 

 page 351. The males of nearly all species of living deer are, moreover, 

 characterised by the appendages on the head taking the form of antlers. 

 These, it is almost superfluous to state, although covered with a soft 

 velvety skin during growth, when fully developed consist of bare 

 rugged bone, supported on a pair of skin-covered pedicles, from which 

 they are periodically shed, to be replaced the following season. 

 Antlers, although occasionally in the form of simple spikes, arc 

 generally branched in a more or less complex manner. Many deer 

 have upper tusks, which are always wanting in the Bovidce ; and in 

 the species without antlers these are long and sabre-shaped. The 



