58 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



-fawn, pricket, sorrel, soare, buck of the first lead, and buck complete, being the terms employed > 

 the antlers not being developed at all in the fawn, being simple snags in the pricket, with two front 

 branches in the sorrel, with slight palmation of the extremity of the beam in" the soare, and the 

 whole antler larger and larger until the sixth year. The venison of the Fallow Deer is fatter than 

 that of the Rod Deer, and is preferred by most. 



The species is not a native of Britain, having most certainly been introduced, although exactly 



BORNEO RTJSINE DEER. 



when is not known. The dark-coloured and more hardy breed was brought from Norway by James I. 

 Its true wild habitat was probably the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, both north and south. 



The PERSIAN FALLOW DEER,* so closely related to the species just referred to that they breed 

 together was made known to us in 1875 by Sir Victor Brooke, who described it from speci- 

 mens sent to England by Mr. Robertson, the British Vice-Consul at Busrah. It resembles the 

 Common Fallow Deer in almost eveiy detail, except that it is slightly larger, and that the antlers 

 are not the same. As stated above, in the Common Fallow Deer the antlers, whilst developed on 

 the sub-elaphine type, are palmated in the region of the royals, with several snags projecting from 

 the upper margin, at the same time that the lower portion of the beam, the tres, and the brow- 

 tynes are cylindrical, as usually is the case in other species. 



* Dama mesopotamica. 



