HIPPOPOTAMUSES, PIGS, AND DEER 309 



to be spotted on the neck, but this feature j occurs in the axis 

 of India. 



The other type of fallow deer in England is much less 

 handsome. It is slightly smaller than the first described, and 

 is entirely without spots. The belly, the inner side of the 

 neck, the muzzle, and the limbs are pale, sometimes a buff-white. 

 The under surface of the tail and the stern are white, with the 

 black border as described in the other form. The colour on the 

 neck and body either becomes a dark brownish-black or even 

 quite black (generally darkest in summer) ; or the brown becomes 

 quite a chestnut or vinous-red, the neck, however, remaining 

 blackish. There are, of course, white and other varieties of the 

 fallow deer produced in a domestic state, from which the true 

 lover of nature turns away wincing, just as he would do from any 

 other non-natural type perpetuated by man's protection. 



Fallow deer have a tail covered with rather long hair. It is 

 about 6 in. in length, and sometimes longer. In this length of 

 tail they differ markedly from the very short-tailed red deer. 

 They have another peculiarity. The penial sheath is marked 

 with a plume or fringe of dark hair. This feature occurs inde- 

 pendently in the oxen, but I cannot recall it in any other 

 Ruminant, though there is a bushy growth round this organ in 

 the roebuck. 



The height of a good buck of the larger variety of fallow 

 deer may be as much as from 39 in. to 40 in. at the shoulder, 

 but fallow deer in these islands rarely stand higher than 36 in. at 

 the withers, and a little less in the females. The smaller plain- 

 coloured type is about 34 in. in the same measurement. The 

 antlers of this sub-genus are specially remarkable for their palma- 

 tion ; that is to say, the spaces between the tines are filled 

 up by a broadening of the bone. There is a tendency to palma- 

 tion inherent in the Deer family which crops out quite indepen- 

 dently in different genera. It occurs, as we have seen, in the 

 elk, and in a lesser degree in the reindeer. The horns of the red 

 deer have a distinct tendency towards palmation. In the big 

 fallow deer found on the western coast of Asia Minor the palmation 



