DEER. 



385 



The American deer are, however, still better distinguished from their Old 

 World cousins, by the characters of their antlers, which are either in the form of 

 simple spikes, or are divided in a fork-like manner, with the anterior prong directed 

 forwards, and no brow-tine. These characteristic features are well shown in the 



PROFILE VIEWS OF THE ANTLERS OP THE 

 MARSH -DEER (A), THE VIRGINIAN DEER 

 {B), AND THE MULE-DEER (C). 



accompanying figures, from which 



it will be seen that while in one 



case the two prongs of the antler 



may be nearly equally developed 



(A), in another the anterior prong 



(a) may be greatly developed at 



the expense of the posterior (b), 



as in the middle figure. It will 



also be seen that there may be 



either a large or small sub-basal 



tine (c) rising from the inner side 



of the front of the antler, some 



distance above the burr, and directed upwardly. It was long considered that this 



sub-basal tine represented the brow-tine of the antlers of the Old World deer, and 



attempts were made to correlate the other tines of the American deer with those of 



the genus Gervus. Mr. Allan Gordon Cameron has, however, pointed out that this 



is a totally erroneous notion : the truth being, that while the members of the genus 



VOL. II. — 25 



