DEER. 383 



of the Caucasus and the Ukraine, and it extends into Western Asia in Persia. 

 Its fossil remains occur in the superficial deposits of England and the Continent ; 

 but at the present day roe deer are found wild within the limits of the British 

 Isles only in Scotland, and in the neighbourhood of the Blackmoor Vale, in Dorset- 

 shire, where they were reintroduced in the early part of the century. In the year 

 1884 a few head were, however, turned out in Epping Forest; and some are 

 kept in certain English parks. 



In Turkestan and the mountains separating Russia from China, 



the place of the ordinary roe is taken by the nearly-allied Tartarian 



roe (0. pygargus), distinguished by its superior size, the more hairy ears, and the 



larger white patch on the rump. In Mantchuria there is a third form, of small 



size, and differing somewhat in coloration from both the others. 



In Scotland roe deer are found chiefly in the woods, or on the 

 immediately adjacent moors, but never wander far out on the open 

 hills, although they will venture on to the cultivated lands in search of food. They 

 feed in the early morning and towards evening, and generally associate in small 

 family parties, while they make regular tracks through the woods to their feeding 

 grounds. Their usual food is grass and other herbage, as well as the young shoots 

 of such trees and bushes as they are able to reach. The speed of the roe is not 

 great ; but the animal is a great leaper, and, when running, its usual pace is a 

 bounding gallop. 



The antlers of the adult bucks are shed about the end of the year, and the 

 new ones are generally fully developed by the latter part of February. The 

 pairing-season takes place during July and August, at which time the bucks are 

 exceedingly pugnacious. Scrope relates that in the summer of 1820 two were 

 found dead in a hollow after one of these contests, lying one on the top of the 

 other, Avith the antlers of the one firmly driven into the shoulder of the other, 

 and vice versa. The fawns are born in the spring, usually early in May; and 

 in Scotland about one doe out of five or six will produce two fawns at a birth 

 in favourable seasons. No account of the roe would be complete without 

 some reference to the extraordinary fact that although the pairing-season takes 

 place in July or August, and the young are not produced till the following 

 May, yet the period of gestation is only five months. The explanation of this 

 appeals to be that the ovum lies dormant for some four and a half months, that is 

 until December, after which it develops in the ordinary manner. 



Certain extinct deer found in the Pliocene deposits of the Continent have been 

 considered to belong to the same genus as the roe. 



The Chinese Water-Deer. 



Genus Hydropotes. 



Among the tall reeds fringing the banks of the Yang-tse-Kiang, there occur 

 numbers of a small deer differing from any of the species hitherto noticed in that 

 while both sexes are totally devoid of antlers, the males are provided with long 

 scimitar-like tusks in the upper jaw, as shown in the figure on the next page. This 



