660 ON THE CERVINE ANIMALS OF HAINAN. [Dec. 9. 
to enter thorny thickets. The Le people procure them, and barter 
their hides for cloth. The hides are good for sleeping upon, as they 
protect against the damp ground.” 
4. This allusion to the ‘‘ Mountain-Cow”’ induces me to extract the 
observations in the same Chinese work on that animal. After men- 
tioning domestic cattle which have run wild, the book says :—‘ There 
is another race, like cattle, but with red eyes. They walk about 
among the hills in herds, and are not pressed at the sight of men. 
They are called ‘Mountain Cows.’ In the hills of the Le terri- 
tory they are particularly abundant.’’ ‘The ‘‘ Mountain Horse,” or 
Sambur, has similar hair, we are told. Can the “ Mountain Cow” 
be the Budorcas taxicolor of Hodgson, or some species allied to it ? 
This must for the present remain a question, as I learned nothing 
of this animal from the natives, and got no samples of it. 
5. The Kiung shan Heen che (or Gazetteer of the Kiungshan 
District of Hainan), the Chinese work referred to above, also men- 
tions the King, an animal “like the Spotted Deer, but smaller, 
and of a black colour.” The character King (pronounced Kiu-ng 
in Amoy) is the local name in Fokien for the Cervulus reevesi ; 
and the same character is read Kia in the Hainan dialect; but in 
this work another character is given for the Kia of Hwangkia, the 
Hainan name for the Cervulus vaginalis. I should have thought 
that the King of the Chinese work might apply to some species of 
Capricornis, perhaps to C. sumatrensis, which occurs in Malacca and 
Tenasserim, but for the following remarks made in the same list of 
Hainan animals. ‘The Choo or Me drops its horns in the fifth 
moon (July). The velvety horns are of use, and as good as those 
of the Spotted Deer.” A work of the former Han dynasty says 
that the hills of Tanurh and Choogai (districts into which Hainan 
was divided in the last century B.c.) abound in Choos and Kings. 
Yen Shekoo, in a commentary on the above, explains that the Choo 
is like a spotted deer, but larger. The ‘Ming Yuen,’ or “clear illus- 
trations,” ‘‘ affirms that a full-grown Luh, or spotted deer, is called 
a Choo. The herd follow it, observing its tail as their guide. Its 
tail is used for brushing off dust. Flap carpets with it, and they 
will not breed moths. Placed between crimson silks, the colour of 
the silks will not fade for years.”” It will thus be seen that Choo 
(which is written with the radical for deer, and the character for 
lord) is simply the monarch or leader of a herd of spotted deer, 
which in Hainan would be Panolia. In the same way, with refer- 
ence to the Formosan Deer, I have discovered that Me applies to a 
large buck of the Sambur group. The character King is here 
adopted, apparently, for the Panolia in its dark winter dress. 
6. Under the head of Hare another and the last Cervine animal 
is spoken of as ‘a large species (vf Hare), called Pé, of a grey 
colour, with feet like a deer. The Kiungchow people often keep it 
alive.’ This must be a species of Tragulus, and probably, I think, 
T. meminna, of which the British Museum has a specimen from 
Cambodia. I did not have the good fortune to fall across this little 
animal on my visit to Hainan. 
