DEER. 



261 



The burr of the horn is very broad and pearled ; 

 the first antler is cylinder-shaped, strong and straight, 

 and stands nearly vertically upon it, measuring about 

 ten inches in length ; the beam bends from the back 

 of it obliquely outwards, arid to the rear, and with a 

 sweep turns its point backwards ; near the summit, or 

 at more Th;in two-thirds oi' its length, is the second 

 posterior and internal branch, short and pointing 

 upwards. In the British Museum there is a specimen 

 measuring about twenty-three inches, which is very 

 rugous and robust. The horns stand upon a broad 

 und short pedicle ; the lace is straight, the nose pointed, 

 the muzzle sunill, and the suborbital opening is very 

 considerable. The ears are broad, with white hairs 

 standing up around the orifice; the tail is black, reach- 

 ing half way down the ham, and is well furnished with 

 hair. The throat and neck are covered with long 

 coarse dark brown-grey hair, reaching partially over 

 the shoulders, susceptible of being raised like a lion's 

 mane, when the animal is excited. The shoulders, 

 head, back, rump, and buttocks, are dark-brown in 

 summer, and almost black in winter ; outside of the 

 ears sepia ; the belly whitish, as also a ring round the 

 nostrils and mouth, separated from the brown by a 

 deeper shade, which spreads up the face ; the inside 

 of the limbs and legs fawn colour, darker over the 

 knees down the front; the breast is black. The male 

 is nearlv the size of the elk, and indeed is so named 

 in India by the Britisli sportsmen. They represent 

 him as being excessively strong and vicious. Some of 

 them, on a shooting expedition, had crossed an arm 

 of the Jumna to a woody island in quest of game ; 

 they were on the back of an elephant, and entering 

 the jungle suddenly roused an old male of this species. 

 On seeing the elephant he started up with a long shrill 

 pipe or whistle, which caused others to rise and dart 

 into cover, while he stood at bay with his bristly mane 

 on end, in a most threatening attitude : but before the 

 sportsmen could prepare proper shot, he wheeled 

 round and dashed through the underwood with the 

 facility of a rhinoceros. Captain Williamson evidently 

 met the same species. He describes the stag as arriv- 

 ing at the size of a Lincolnshire cart-horse, fifteen or 

 sixteen hands high, shining black, with tanned points 

 (of the hair r 1 ) One of these, he says, heads a score 

 of females, who are of a mouse colour. He likewise 

 calls it an elk, and adds, that they reside in the Prauss 

 jungles. But though this species gets the name of the 

 elk, there is no resemblance between them, farther 

 than the generic character. This is decidedly a spe- 

 cies of the warmer climates ; and though we are but 

 little acquainted with its habits in wild nature, it doe: 

 not appear to be so social as the elk ; indeed, the deer 

 of warm countries do not in general appear to congre- 

 gate in such numbers as those of temperate and polar 

 climates. 



MALAY RUSA Ccrvus equmus. This is also a large 

 species ; and though the specimens hitherto brought 

 to Europe have been obtained from the Suuda Islands 

 there is every reason to believe that it inhabits the 

 Malay Peninsula, and probably also some parts o 

 India. When full grown, it is described as being o 

 the size of a horse, with the horns tapering, and the 

 second snag, which is turned to the rear, very small 

 The horns are of a very bright reddish brown ; botl 

 sexes have canine teeth ; and the frontal bone is mud 

 flatter than in most species of deer. The colour is 

 grevish brown, paler on the under part ; rust colon 

 on the haunches, and the tail ; the insides of the legs 



vhitish, the muzzle black, arid the chin white. The 

 bllowing is Hamilton Smith's description of a speci- 

 men exhibited some years ago at Exeter Change. 

 ' The animal was then about two years old, and his 

 rorns were simple, or in the brocket state ; the next 

 year its new horns showed the bifurcation of the surn- 

 nit, to be as in the Black Rusa of Bengal ; that is 

 near the summit on the internal posterior side. It was 

 hen four feet, or something more, at the shoulder; and 

 still higher at the croup ; its eyes were large, dark, 

 and mild : the suborbital slit opened at pleasure, and 

 was remarkably expanded when it drank, with a per- 

 ceptible action of the air passing in and out as before 

 noticed. The ears, broad and pointed, were nearly 

 naked within, and whitish-grey without, the face, shoul- 

 ders, back, and thighs were of a dark brown-grey ; the 

 nair rough and bristly on the neck and throat. This 

 colour was darker, and the hair very long, especially 

 the second year, when the crest or mane on the neck 

 and throat hung very heavy and thick ; the breast and 

 belly were of a dark ash, almost black. A consider- 

 able disk of a clear rusty, or orange, colour, expanded 

 over the buttocks, lined the inferior side of the tail, 

 and was separated by a black line from the grey of the 

 thighs. The tail, about a foot in length, was black 

 above ; the joints of the legs, the inside of the thighs, 

 and their anterior side were yellowish dun, and the 

 legs from the joints downwards buff; the chin was 

 white, with a black spot at the corner of the mouth, 

 on the lower lip, and a bar of the same colour above 

 the nostrils, which were placed on a black muzzle ; 

 the cheeks and space round the eyes were buff, pass- 

 ing to grey." 



The horns are of a dark colour, rugous, robust, but 

 shorter and less curved than in the Hippelaphus ; the 

 anterior antler, and posterior snag, are both short and 

 obtuse, but from the size of the first, or brocket horns, 

 of the animal being near eight inches long, it is pre- 

 sumed that they become, it not much prolonged, at 

 least very bulky : his second horns were about four- 

 teen inches. This species resembles the Bengal Rusa 

 in many particulars : both have the forehead flat, and 

 the face straight ; the muzzle small, with spots of black 

 on the under lip, and a ring round the nose ; the ears 

 naked inside ; the horns short, stout, and similarly 

 formed ; the same mane and dark breast. In fact, 

 the only obvious differences are the presence of a disk 

 on the buttocks of the present, which does not appear 

 on the former, and that of dimensions ; but even in 

 this particular there can be no great disparity. It 

 may be, therefore, that ultimately these two will be 

 marked as only varieties of one species. 



There are some other species or varieties described 

 as inhabiting the Malay peninsula, or the adjacent 

 isles ; but it is by no means unlikely that some of 

 them are the females of the species now described : 

 and, indeed, there is some reason to suspect that all 

 the Rusas are merely climatal varieties of one very 

 widely distributed species, which may be called the 

 stag of South-Eastern Asia, or the Indian stag ; we 

 shall, however, mention two others, which differ con- 

 siderably from those which have been enumerated, 

 and which are the most remote from continental Asia 

 in their localities. 



The MAUIANA RUSA Cervus Manama. This 

 species inhabits the group of the Mariana or Ladrone 

 islands, which lie between twelve and twenty degrees 

 north latitude, and a hundred and forty-four and a 

 hundred and forty-eight east longitude. There is every 



