LIVING IN THE SOCIETY’S MENAGERIE. 343, 
3. CERYUS AFFINIS. 
Cervus wallichii, Cuy. Oss. Foss. (ed. 3) iv. p. 504; F. Cuy. Hist. Nat. Mamm. pl. 356; Puch. 
Arch. d. Mus. vi. p. 396; Blyth, J. A. S. B. x. p. 745, et xx. p. 174. 
affinis, Hodgson, J. A. S. B. x. p.721, et xvi. p. 689, et xix. pp. 466, 518, et xx. p. 388 ; Jerdon, 
Ind. Mamm. p. 251. 
—— tibetanus et C. elaphus, Hodgson, 
I have already given my reasons for considering Cuyier’s Cervus wallichii probably 
identical with the “Shou or Tibetan Stag” of Hodgson, usually called Cervus affinis by 
Indian naturalists; but as there is still a certain amount of uncertainty in the matter, 
it is perhaps better to retain Hodgson’s name for the species. It now, however, 
seems quite certain that Hodgson was deceived in stating that this animal ever occurs 
in the Sal Forests of the Nepalese Terai. It is also probable that Mr. Blyth and 
other authorities who speak of it as a “Tibetan” animal have been equally mis- 
taken, the only certain locality for it yet known being the Choombi valley, near 
Sikim. This district, although politically belonging to Tibet, is on the south side of 
the Himalayas, and is drained by the Machoo river, which flows due south into the 
Burrampooter'. 
4. CERVUS CASHMEERIANUS. (Cashmirian Deer.) As far as is certainly known, this 
! Dr. A. Campbell, late resident at Darjeeling, has kindly favoured me with the following reply to a request 
for information concerning Cervus affinis :— 
‘“<T took a great interest in the ‘Shou’ at one time, and in 1862 I brought home a beautiful head and horns, 
and a pair of very large loose horns, but I have not got them now. ‘The cause of my especial interest in the 
animal was this. The first notice of it was by Hodgson, I believe, and was derived from a single horn picked 
up in the Nipal Tarai by Wallich’s plant-collector—such is my impression. This must have been about the 
year 1824. In 1839 I left Cathmandu to march through the Tarai to the Sikim frontier, two hundred miles. 
On starting, Hodgson gave me a sketch of the horns of the ‘ Shou,’ and asked me to make particular inquiry 
about it, and, if possible, to get him a skin, head, and horns complete. During my march I saw no end of all 
the known deer of the Tarai and lower hills, but could never fall in with any having two brow-antlers ; and 
whenever I showed my sketch of the horns to the Shikarees or Elephant-catchers, who knew the country and 
all its animals most intimately, they invariably told me that ‘no such deer as that was ever seen in the Tarai.’ 
Two or three years later my official duties took me into the Bootan Tarai, and I renewed my inquiries after 
this deer, but with the same result. I now turned to the people at and about Darjeeling for information 
about the animal, and learned that a large deer with double brow-antlers, called the ‘Shou,’ was found in 
Choombi; and at last I procured its head and horns, and skins of the male and female. The point of interest, 
therefore, about the ‘Shou’ or ‘ Tibetan Stag’ is, that its habitat is not ‘ Tibet’ at all; and indeed this might 
have been inferred from the absence, which I believe to be the case, of all other deer from the fauna of that 
country. 
“The ‘Shou’ is an animal found in the valley of ‘Choombi,’ which, although politically belonging to Thibet, 
is in its physical aspect totally different from Thibet. It is well wooded, well watered, and fertile. Thibet 
proper is destitute of wood, bare, and mostly barren. It is in the woods surrounding the valley of * Choombi’ 
that the ‘Shou’ finds its genial shade and pasture. Choombi lies between the Chola Pass of the Sikim 
Himalayas and Phari, on the frontier of Thibet proper. See Hooker's ‘ Himalayan Journals,’ vol. ii. p. 110.” 
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