88 THE MUSK-DEER. 



erect, and set closely together. In colour it is a dark greyish- 

 brown, which deepens on the quarters, and is slightly mottled 

 on the sides with spots of a pale brown. Its pelage is thick, 

 springy, and brittle, each hair having a crimped appearance 

 about half-way along from its root. The hoofs are small and 

 pointed, and the upper or false hoofs peculiarly long. The 

 habit of this little animal of returning to the same spot to de- 

 posit its droppings, is curious ; they are frequently met with 

 in heaps, which must have taken months to accumulate. 

 Some of these heaps are highly scented with musk, while 

 others are quite inodorous, which leads one to suppose that 

 each heap has been made by the same individual. This deer 

 carries no horns ; but the upper jaw of the male is provided 

 with a pair of canine teeth, which grow to a length of quite 

 two inches, if not more. As the buck only has these teeth, 

 it is hard to say for what use they are intended, unless it be 

 for fighting ; but their rather loose setting in the jaw, and 

 their fragile make, are against this theory. The does are so 

 similar to the bucks in size and colour, that at a short distance 

 it is almost impossible to distinguish any difference between 

 them; consequently many of the former are destroyed un- 

 necessarily. The musk is found in the male only, in a small 

 bag under the skin, close to the prepuce. When fresh, the 

 secretion is soft and moist, and of a brownish colour. Its 

 smell is then rather offensive ; but when it hardens and dries, 

 the well-known odour of musk becomes so powerful as to be 

 almost permanently transmitted to anything with which it 

 comes in contact. On being taken from the dead animal, it is 

 at once tied up tightly in a bit of the hairy skin that covers 

 the gland, and is then called a " musk-pod." The musk-deer 

 inhabits the high cold regions below the snow-line, where it 

 generally affects thick rocky cover ; but it is not unfrequently 

 met with among bare crags, and occasionally about the highest 

 tops of the middle ranges. The natives say it can travel over 

 even worse ground than the tahr. Its cry of alarm is a kind 



