BARKING-DEER. 33 



jurrow, from the higher ranges downwards. In Madras it 

 is known as the "jungle sheep," and I believe it is identical 

 with the muntjac of the more eastern parts of Asia. It is 

 rather smaller than a roe -deer, and bright red like that 

 animal in its summer coat. Its head is curiously shaped, 

 that of the buck being surmounted with two continuations 

 of the V-shaped ribbed bone of its forehead, about two inches 

 long and covered with skin and hair. From these grow the 

 horns, which in a full-grown buck are three or four inches 

 in length, curved inwards at the top, and with one short prong 

 just above the burr, projecting to the front and slightly up- 

 wards. Although I have seen numbers of this curious little 

 deer at all seasons, and killed many of them myself with 

 horns of divers lengths, from a little sprout above the burr 

 to their fully developed size, strange to say, I have never 

 found them in velvet, From this I am inclined to think 

 they do not shed their horns regularly like other horn- 

 bearing Cervidse (excepting the " cheetal " or spotted deer 

 Axis maculatus which drops its horns very irregularly, as 

 I shall hereafter endeavour to show), even if they do so at 

 all. But upon this point I cannot speak with certainty. The 

 upper jaw of the buck is provided with a pair of sharp canine 

 teeth, which sometimes project quite half an inch over the 

 lower lips. For what use they are intended is uncertain. An 

 old shikaree, whose veracity I had no reason to doubt, told 

 me that he had once come upon two bucks fighting ; one of 

 them was soon left disabled on the ground, when he observed 

 it had a deep cut in its back, evidently made by the tooth 

 of its opponent, but whether purposely or accidentally he 

 could not tell. This pretty little animal is most frequently 

 found in thick cover interspersed with patches of cultivation. 

 In the latter it may often be found feeding very early in the 

 morning or late in the evening, but generally so close to the 

 cover that in the grey dawn or twilight it is often not detected 

 until the white of its stern is seen bobbing away into the 



c 



