276 MOSTLY MAMMALS 



Non Hai-tzu, or even in the specimens first brought to 

 Europe. 



The date of the introduction of these deer into the 

 imperial hunting-park is probably very remote, seeing 

 that, as already said, they have never been found wild in 

 any part of Asia by Europeans. It is true that, according 

 to Dr. S. W. Bushell, to whose account reference is again 

 made in the sequel, a Chinese writer of the latter part of 

 the eighteenth century mentions Kashgaria as the native 

 country of these deer ; but even if that be correct, the 

 species may have been exterminated there centuries ago. 

 Anyway, there is but little hope of its survival in that 

 district at the present day. 



As China became slowly opened up to European 

 enterprise, the difficulty of obtaining specimens of the 

 mi-lou deer gradually decreased, and in August, 1869, a 

 male and female were received at the menagerie of the 

 Zoological Society as a gift from Sir Rutherford Alcock. 

 A second pair were acquired by purchase in 1883, since 

 the death of which the species appears to have been 

 unrepresented in the Society's collection. Meanwhile 

 specimens were from time to time received by various 

 menageries on the Continent ; and the species has bred at 

 the gardens of the Societe d'Acclimatation at Paris and 

 elsewhere. 



The subsequent history of this interesting and remark- 

 able species is extremely sad, no one apparently having 

 had the least idea that it was on the point of extermina- 

 tion until too late. No definite statements are made by 

 the earlier travellers as to the numbers of these deer in 

 the Non Hai-tzu when they first came under the observa- 

 tion of Europeans. Writing, however, in the summer of 

 1898 to the Secretary of the Zoological Society, Dr. Bushell 



