THE AMERICAN DEER. 



69 



The MULE DEER and the BLACK-TAILED DEER are not far distantly related North American 

 species. The former is slightly larger than the Virginian and of a heavier build. Its tail is short, 

 tufted, and white ; its colour a dark grey in winter, dull yellow in summer. Its name was suggested 

 from its lengthy ears. The latter is smaller, and has shorter legs. Its colour is tawny grey, the 

 short tail black above and white below. Of both these species the antlers differ from the Virginian 

 Deer in detail, only the brow tyne of the Black-tailed species being rudimentary, at the same time 

 that the snags on the convex margin of the beam spring from a single stem instead of independently. 

 In the Mule Deer they are smaller and less branched. Lord Walsingham, in writing of them, remarks, 

 " They appear to frequent the thick willow clumps and other brushwood bordering the streams and 

 swamps. They were extremely difficult to distinguish among the foliage, and remarkably quick when 

 alarmed. As they bound off over logs and fallen trees, or dash through the thicket, they have a habit 

 of swinging their broad white tails with a conspicuous nourish, which becomes annoying to a sports- 

 man, to whom they never afford anything but a snap shot, which is very apt to fail." 



GUAZUTI DEER. 



The GUAZUS are small South American Deer with large ears and short tails, in which the antlers 

 want the brow tyne, and have the beam branched in almost exactly the same way as Schomburgk's Deer 

 when not quite full grown. The Guazuti, one of them, is not more than two feet six inches in height. 



The BROCKETS are equally small, with minute antlers of a most simple form whence the name 

 they being unbranched and shelving backwards. The colour of the fur in the Guava Viva and Brazi- 

 lian Brocket is pale brown, and shining red-brown in the Red Brocket and the Eyebrowed Brocket. 



The VENADA, OR PUDU DEER, is not bigger than Reeves' Muntjac or a Hare. Its colour is 

 red-brown, and it has minute antlers, not far separated from one another. It inhabits the western 

 coast of South America. 



THE CHEVROTAINS, OR DEERLETS.* 



It is not until within the last few years that naturalists have separated off from the true 

 Deer a group of diminutive animals which look like them in miniature, but are entirely destitute 

 of antlers. These little creatures, known as Chevrotains, for which we take the liberty of coining 

 the name Deerlets, were placed together with the Musk into a single section, characterised by the 

 fact that the males possess large tusks situated in the upper jaw, which project downwards, and 

 are conspicuous even when the mouth is fully closed, grooving the lower lip on each side. Now, 



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* Tragulidce. 



