236 DR. J. E. GRAY ON A CHINESE STAG. [JuTie 11> 



The following papers were read : — 

 1. Notice of a Stag from Northern China sent by Mr. 



SwiNHOE TO THE ZOOLOGICAL SoCIETY. By Dr. JoHN 



Edward Gray, F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., etc. 

 (Plate XXVII.) 



Mr. Swinhoe has most kindly sent to us three examples of a Deer 

 which were shot in the Gardens of the Summer Palace at Pekia iu 

 the winter of 1860. 



There is a skin of an adult male with horns, of an adult female, and 

 of a younger animal. 



The male agrees in most particulars with the account of the Cervus 

 pseudaxis of Eydoux, figured by Gervais in the ' Voyage of the 

 Bonite,' and its horns with those of the same animal figured by Dr. 

 Pucheran in the 'Archives du Museum' (vol. iv. t. 24. f. 2-8). 

 The specimens having been procured in the winter, agree with the 

 figures of the animal in that state on M. Gervais's plate. 



Mr. Swinhoe thought it might be the Cervus wallichii of Cuvier, 

 but it has no affinity to that species. 



It is very like a series of animals (for now we have two pairs, and 

 they are breeding) which were received a short time ago by the Zoo- 

 logical Society from Japan, and which I described, under the name 

 of Busajapotiica, in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History' 

 for February 1861, p. 143 ; and in the form of the horns and in the 

 general appearance of the animal it agrees with the Cervus sika, Tem- 

 minck, very shortly described and figured in the ' Fauna Japonica.' 



Dr. Sclater, in the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' has 

 stated his opinion that my Rusa japonica is probably the same as 

 Cervus sika a.nA also as Cervvs jiseuJ<ixis. But Cervus pseudaxis and 

 Husa japonica differ from Cervus sika in having a large white anal 

 disk surrounded by a black edge, which is not represented iu the 

 figure of Cervus sika, nor mentioned in the short and, I own, very 

 imperfect description of that species. 



I may state that Cervus pseudaxis appears to be a species of the 

 genus liusa rather than Axis, with which I had placed it in the 

 ' Catalogue of the Ungulated Animals in the British Museum,' p. 215; 

 and it seems closely allied to the small species which inhabit the 

 islands of the Indian Ocean, that form the second section of the genus 

 Rusa in the catalogue above quoted ; but, as in the other species of 

 that section, we want much more materials in order to know what 

 are and what are not species of that group. 



The animal which has been figured under the name of Cervus 

 pseudaxis was obtained by MM. Eydoux and Souleyet in Java, but 

 they did not believe that it was a native of that country. It lived 

 several years in the Jardiu des Plantes at Paris, and hence a series 

 of its horns was procured and figured ; and while there it bred 

 with the Common Axis, and the male produce was fertile (see 

 'Archives du Museum,' iv. p. 421). Some naturalists have given 



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