THE AXIS. si* 



flag fpecics, becaufe that part of India, through 

 which the Ganges runs, appears to be its native 

 country. It feems, however, to be like wife 

 found in Barbary *, and it is probable that the 

 fpotted fallow deer of the Cape of Good Hope 

 is the fame animal f . 



We formerly remarked, that no fpecics J made 

 io near an approach to another, as the fallow 

 deer to the flag. The axis, however, feems to 

 form an intermediate made between the two. 

 It refembles the fallow deer in the fize of the 

 body, the length of the tail, and in a kind of li- 

 very which it perpetually wears : There is no 

 eifential difference but in the horns, which want 

 brow antlers, and refemble thofe of the flag. 

 The axis, therefore, may be a variety only, and 

 not a different fpecies from that of the fallow 

 deer ; for, though it is a native of the warmefl 

 countries of Aiia, it eafily lubfifls and multiplies 

 in Europe. There are flocks of them in the me- 

 nagery of Paris. They produce among them- 

 felves with equal facility as the fallow deer. 



They 



* The Arabs call a fpecics of fallow deer Bekker-eJ-WaJh, 

 Which has the horns of a flag, but is not fo large. Thofe 

 which I faw had been taken in the mountains near Sgigata, 

 and appeared to be of a mild and tractable difpofition. The 

 female had no horns, 5:c. ; Shaw's Travels. 



f We faw, at the Cape of Good Hope, a kind of fpotted 

 fallow deer, which were fomewhat fmaller than thofe of Eu- 

 rope. . . . Their fpots were white and yellow. They al- 

 ways go in flocks ; Defcrtpt. chi Cap de Bonm-efperance. t pjr 

 Kotbe, toni. l. p. 1 20. 



t See the article Falfaw deer, Vol. IV. of this work. 



