1875.] MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON A NEW STAG. 639 
point it gives out an anterior tine, which is much the longest of all, 
being only a little shorter than the upper part of the beam itself. 
Above this the beam gives out two other tines, successively diminish- 
ing in size, the last about equal to the terminal snag; and all these 
four upper points, with the beam itself, are distinctly compressed, so 
as to be subpalmate; and all four are in nearly the same plane, so 
that by looking at the horn with either the beam or the great fourth 
tine in front, the remainder of the crown can be completely concealed. 
The nearest approach in form to these horns with which I am ac- 
quainted may perhaps be found in a pair figured by Severtzoff in his 
‘Turkestanskie Jevotnie,’ p. 105, under the name of Cervus maral. 
The number of tines is similar; and there is some resemblance in 
their form and in the manner in which the beam curves backwards 
above the royal. These horns also, I believe, came from the Thian- 
Shan mountains, and they may perhaps belong to the same species. 
But in Severtzoff’s figure the brow and bez antlers are much further 
apart, the beam appears less curved inwards above the royals, and 
the tendency to palmation in the crown is wanting, whilst the fourth 
tine scarcely exceeds the two next in size. 
The horns now figured differ widely from, those of Cervus maral 
represented in the ‘Transactions of the Zoological Society,’ vol. vii. 
p. 336, pl. xxix. The curve of the beam in the former is greater, 
the brow and bez antlers closer together and different in proportion 
and direction ; and the crown is very dissimilar. 
On comparing the Thian-Shan horns with those of Cervus cash- 
mirianus and C. affinis, even greater differences will be noticed. The 
horns now described are smoother ; the brow and bez antlers are closer 
together; the beam is bent backward towards the tip, which is not 
the case in the species from Kashmir and Eastern Tibet ; and the form 
of the crown is utterly different. In C. affinis there are said never 
to be more than two, and in C. cashmirianus, as a rule, certainly not 
above three points above the royal, and there is not the slightest 
tendency to palmation. 
Whatever Mr. Hodgson’s Cervus narayanus* (founded upon a 
single immature horn) may be, it is evidently something very different 
from the Thian-Shan species, its chief peculiarity being the great dis- 
tance apart of the two basal tines. 
It appears to me that the horns of the Thian-Shan stag approach 
those of the Wapiti more than they do those of any Asiatic deer. 
The general resemblance between the Asiatic stags and Cervus ca- 
nadensis in the form of the antlers has been discussed by many natu- 
ralists, and by uone more fully than by Mr. Blyth t, who has pointed 
out that the most important characters in which the horns of the 
American stag differ from those of the animals found in Eastern 
Tibet, Kashmir, and Persia are the smoothness of the former, their 
tendency to flattening or palmation in the crown, their greater sub- 
division in the upper portion, and the marked backward curvature 
and want of convergence in the upper part of the beam. Now in all 
* J. A.S. B. 1851, vol. xx. p. 392, pl. viii. 
+ J.A.S. B. 1853, vol. xxii. p. 592; 1861, vol. xxx. p. 185, &e. 
Proc. Zoou. Soc.—1875, No. XLI. 4] 
