1870.] MR. R. SWINHOE ON CHINESE MAMMALS. 645 
the ‘Transactions.’ I have only a few notes to offer on the ap- 
pearance of some skins that were brought tome at Takow. One was 
a stuffed skin of a fawn about 19 inches in length. Its colour was 
rich yellowish brown, deeper on the back, and paling on the sides 
and legs; face redder, with a blackish-brown forehead, and dark 
brown behind the ears. Inside of ears, underparts, inner sides of 
legs, and under tail pure white, the throat and neck above being 
tinged with red; upper surface of tail red. Two rows of yellowish 
spots flank the back on either side, with a few irregular ones out- 
lying on the shoulders and hind quarters. 
Three skins of adult animals are in different stages of coat :—the 
winter, when the hair is brown finely mottled, the list down the back 
showing itself in a deep brown line becoming black over the tail, the 
underparts a dull white; hair not long and spots scarcely visible. 
The autumn dress, evidently of a young male from its shagginess and 
coarseness; the list down the back much blacker, the browa tinged 
with a rich red, and the white spots beginning to fade. The third 
skin shows the appearance of the female in summer—of a rich orange- 
buff, browner ou the back, with a deep black dorsal ridge, the white 
spots pure and conspicuous with a wavy white line of coalescing spots 
below from fore to hind leg, under which the buff again appears, but 
very pale, and is succeeded by the white of the underparts. _ In all 
three skins the upper surface of the tail and the rump at its base 
are black, the lower surtace of the tail and the inner side of buttocks 
pure white. 
The following Chinese notice on the Formosan Deer from the 
Taiwanfoo Gazetteer is perhaps worth recording :—“ The Formosan 
hills have no Tigers; hence Deer are very numerous. In former 
years the whole ‘island was given up to hunting-ground by the 
aborigines ; now it is ploughed and sown by the Chinese settlers, so 
that fair fields extend as far as the eye can reach, and the Deer have 
betaken themselves to the mountains. They are there hunted and 
captured ; but the horns of the Formosan species are thin and soft at 
the base, and not equal to the plump branchers from Leaotung Pro- 
vince (North China). A hundred pairs when roasted will only pro- 
duce about twenty pounds of mediciual glue. Though Deer abound, 
you may seek a piece of venison in vain in the markets. At the 
winter and spring festivities, however, the natives cut venison up into 
square blocks weighing over a pound each, and, after steeping them 
in brine, forward them to the departmental and district cities. The 
colour of the vension so preserved is black, and its taste changed ; 
it is not fit to pick up with chop-sticks ; and yet its price is no trifle. 
“‘ Deer by their horns record their years, each fork on the antler 
signifying one year, much as the age of horses is recorded by their 
teeth. The aborigines shoot Deer for food ; but no one has ever met 
a buck carrying’seven or more forks on the ‘antlers. It was declared 
in former days that Deer were fairy animals of great longevity ; and 
it was stated that at the age of 500 they were white, and at 1000 
black. But these stories must be fables ; for the natives at Chuhtsan 
shot a small Deer of a pure white with only two forks to its antler. 
This albinism cannot, therefore, be otherwise than due to an accidental 
