THE VIRGINIAN DEER 71 



This letter from Mr. Tegetmeier was followed 

 some time afterwards by another from " Im- 

 pecuniosus." 



" SIR, I saw this creature many years ago, 

 1 think in 1856, anyhow before I was in the 

 army, and, having made a sketch of it at the 

 time, remember its appearance perfectly. What 

 this was may interest some of your readers. It 

 was exhibited with c the giant horse,' a great 

 half-bred beast supposed to be twenty hands 

 high, and which had little interest for me. At 

 the time my opinion was, and I have never 

 changed it, that the { hybrid * was no more nor 

 less than a very small mule judiciously * faked 

 up. 1 It was some eleven hands high, or perhaps 

 less ; colour, the brown of a brown mule, which 

 also resembles that of a deer in its winter coat ; 

 head small, but asinine ; ears about the length 

 of a deer's, as is the case with those of many 

 mules ; very little mane (this may have been 

 nature or art) ; the tail much what a mule's would 

 be if denuded of the long hairs, but I and my 

 pal, in our united wisdom, suspected it of having 

 been docked ; body and legs distinctly those of 

 a mule, also the feet, but down the front of each 



