REVIEW. ' 899 



The thing is amusing for once, afterwards, unless one gets leave 

 to spare something, merely disgusting. Mr. Blanford's account of 

 the Hog-deer is good ; he gives no weights, but the average of a full 

 grown buck is just one hundredweight. The reviewer has weighed 

 several large bucks of 120 lbs., none over, out of about 100 weighed. 

 Our author, though justly suspicious of the Western India records 

 of Hog-deer, all due to confusion with Tragulus memimna, need not 

 have doubted the assertions of such authorities as Forsyth and Ball, 

 as to the animiil's distribution, and the reviewer does not. The skin 

 makes a tolerable fur in the cold weather, and an excellent soft and 

 strong " chamois '' leather, much used in the plain of the Indus for 

 leather stockings, camel's housings, and other purposes. 



The Barkmg Deer, in Mr. Blanford's Catalogue, is followed by the 

 Musk-Deer, not a Bombay beast. The next, however, the Mouse- 

 deer, is a common animal in the Ghat and Konkan forests. Mr. 

 Blanford unnecessarily confines it to the Western Ghats, North of 

 Bombay. The truth is that its small size, shy habits, and extremely 

 protective coloration (olive brown with dull white markings), make 

 it very hard to see in the forests. European sportsmen seldom use 

 dogs here, and without dogs it is seldom brought to bag. It closes 

 the list of deer, and the next chapter is for the Grey Boar. At the 

 end of the deer, and before the swine, Mr. Blanford gives 

 the camels a couple of paragraphs, but does not describe 

 the Indian species ; following his own precedent, the case 

 of Bos indicus. As both animals undoubtedly form part of the 

 Mammalian Fauna of India ; the merit of this procedure seems 

 doubtful. He believes Prejeval^sky's wild camels to be the 

 descendants of tame specimens of C. Bactrianus ; which is possible 

 enough, but if it be true that the Chinese annals record ancient 

 camel hunts in Prejeval^sky's region; the original ancestor must have 

 strayed a long while ago. Camels do stray and make themselves 

 at home in the jungle in India, but usually singly. There was, 

 not long ago, a feral herd of camels in southern Spain, where 

 somebody had imported them for a special purpose not followed 

 up. There were wild camels in India once, for our author says, 

 "Fossil remains of two extinct species have been found in the 

 Pliocene Siwaliks." 

 52 



