THE DEER— AMERICAN DEER. 



537 



beast and uses its small horns and its canine teeth 

 with much vigor and skill. Many Dogs are wounded 

 in attacking it and they sometimes sustain injuries 

 on neck, throat or abdomen, which end in death. 



The Muntjak endures confinement very well in its 

 own country and fairly well in Europe. It is often 

 found in the possession of Europeans and natives. 

 The venison is said to be savory, but lean. 



Z\k flfeusk Deer. 



SIXTH FAMILY: 



have 

 very 



MOSCHID/E. 



Some naturalists have placed among the Deer 

 several small and very dainty Ruminants, which 

 among others include the dwarfs of the entire order, 

 namely, the Musk Deer and the Chevrotain. We 

 regard them as distinct families, however. 



The Musk Deer {Moschidce) have no antlers, no 

 tear-pits, no hair-tuft on the hinder legs, and a rudi- 

 mentary tail. The males 

 are, like male Chevrotains, 

 distinguished from other 

 Ruminants by the posses- 

 sion of long, protruding 

 canine teeth in the upper 

 jaw, projecting downward 

 from the mouth. The 

 lofty mountains of China 

 and Tibet constitute the 

 native habitat of these ani- 

 mals. There they live in 

 the rockiest portions of the 

 mountains — seldom rang- 

 ing in the valleys, into 

 which they descend only 

 when a severe winter drives 

 them from their heights 

 and lack of food compels 

 them to turn toward more 

 favored regions. 



The family is represent- 

 ed by one genus and one 

 species only, the Musk 

 Deer (Moschus moschiferus). 

 It is a graceful Ruminant, 

 from thirty-six to forty 



inches in length, and from twenty to twenty-two 

 inches in height at the shoulders. It is of sturdy 

 build; higher at the croup than in front, slender- 

 legged, short-necked. It has a rather long head, 

 obtusely rounded at the muzzle; its eyes are of mod- 

 erate size with long lashes and a very mobile pupil; 

 and it has ears of ovoid shape which are half as long 

 as its head. The toes are encased in rather small, 

 long, narrow and pointed ungulate nails; but the feet 

 can be expanded considerably by means of a fold 

 of skin connecting the hoofs with the rudimentary 

 toes, which reach to the ground. This arrangement 

 enables the animal to walk sure-footed and without 

 difficulty on snow-fields or glaciers. By all accounts 

 the color of the coat of the animal must be very 

 variable; some individuals are very dark above, 

 dingy white below; others are reddish brown; some 

 yellowish brown above, white beneath; others again 

 show a longitudinal row of light spots on the back. 

 The canines protrude from the mouth of the male 

 two or three inches, and show first a gentle bend out- 

 ward, then a scythe-shaped curve backward. The 

 female also has canine teeth, but they do not pro- 

 trude beyond the lips. 



Description of the The musk pouch lies in the hinder 

 Pouch of the p ar t of the abdomen and has the ap- 

 Musk Deer. pearance of a sac-like, slightly prom- 

 inent, roundish pouch rather exceeding two inches 

 in length, one inch in width and about two inches in 

 height. On both sides it is beset by a margin of 

 stiff hair, the direction of the growth of which on 

 one side is opposed to that of the other side, a cir- 

 cular spot in the middle being left uncovered. This 

 spot contains two little apertures, one behind the 

 other and connected with the pouch itself by short 

 canals. Small glands within the pouch secrete the 

 musk, and when the pouch becomes too full it is 

 emptied by means of the anterior canal. The pouch 

 attains its full dimensions and normal contents of 

 musk only in the adult animal. The average quan- 

 tity of the valuable substance is little short of an 

 ounce, but nearly double that amount has been 

 found in some pouches. Young bucks yield about 

 one-eighth of this quantity. In the living animal the 



THE MUNTJAK. The species of Deer shown in the picture are small animals with rather short legs, 



inhabiting India, the Indian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula. Their most notable peculiarity is the length 

 of the pedestals which connect the antlers of the male with the frontal bones. {Cervulus muntjac.) 



musk has the consistency of a salve; when dried it is 

 a granulated or pulverized substance, which is at 

 first of a red-brown hue, but later darkens and may 

 become coal-black. 



Neither the Greeks nor the Romans knew any- 

 thing of the Musk Deer, notwithstanding their fool- 

 ish fondness for perfumed ointments, and the fact 

 that they obtained most of them from India and 

 Arabia. The Chinese, on the other hand, have been 

 using musk for thousands of years. We obtained 

 the first information concerning the Musk Deer 

 from the Arabs. 

 Range and Attn- The Musk Deer is distributed over 

 butes of the the region from the Amoor to the 

 Mush Deer. Caspian Sea and from the sixtieth 

 parallel of north latitude to China and Farther India. 

 It is most abundant around the Lake of Baikal and 

 in the mountains of Mongolia, as well as in the 

 Himalayas, where it is said rarely to descend below 

 seven thousand five hundred feet in summer. In 

 parts of these regions it is yet so plentiful that pro- 

 fessional hunters can slay several hundred in one 

 winter. The craggy slopes and tangled forests are 

 the proper haunts of these noted animals, and there 



