1897.] DEER ALLIED TO CERTUS SICA, 43 



brown colour, with numerous distinct white spots of considerable 

 size ; and there is a white glaudular patch on the outer side of 

 the hind leg just below the hock. The neck is unspotted, and its 

 lower portion is of a slaty-blue colour, above which there is a dark 

 collar, followed by chestnut-brown, the lower part of the face 

 beiug also bluish grey. The under-parts are whitish ; and the tail is 

 white with a narrow black median line, but there is no distinct 

 black cross on the buttocks. This Deer is therefore quite unlike 

 0. sica in its winter coat. 



The female (No. 61. 6. 2. 2), which has long been exhibited in 

 the MamiHalian Gallery as C. manchuricus, appears to be similarly 

 coloured, with the exception that there is no slaty blue on the 

 neck, and the belly is greyish, while there is a distiuct black cross 

 on the buttocks. Its height at the shoulder is 2 ft. 9 in. 



In 1864 Mr. Swinhoe, being satisfied that the buck figured by 

 Gray was not the Cervus ■psnalaxis of Eydoux and Souleyet, 

 proposed for it the name of G. hortulonmi. In the same letter 

 the name C. mancJmricus was proposed for the specimens sent 

 home alive at the same time for the Zoological Gardens ; and it 

 is quite evident that Swinhoe was satisfied of the distinctness of 

 the two forms. 



In his description of C. manchiiricus, Mr. Sclater ^ stated that 

 Swinhoe seemed to have described the same species of Deer under 

 two names in one letter. Mr. Sclater figures C. manclmricus in 

 its dark uniform wiuter coat, which is indistinguishable from that 

 of the typical sica ; and had he given fuller atteution to Grny's 

 description and figure, it could scarcely have escaped his notice that 

 the winter coat of G. hortulorum was spotted on the body, bluish 

 grey on the neck, and light beneath. Sir Victor Brooke " followed 

 Mr. Sclater in regarding hortulorum as a synonym of mancliurkus. 



When I visited Woburu last summer the Duchess of Bedford 

 pointed out to me three large Sicine Deer obtained from near 

 Pekin at the same time as the type of G. heclfordianns, and 

 remarked that these three alone seemed distinguishable from the 

 whole of the other Japanese and Chinese representatives of the 

 sica group in the collection. Although I was then somewhat 

 sceptical on the subject, time has shown the correctness of Her 

 Grace's diagnosis. On again visiting Woburn Abbey in the 

 middle of November — by which time all the Deer had acquired 

 their full winter dress — I found that these three Deer (o2ie buck 

 and two does) were still fully spotted on the body, although 

 perhaps rather less so than in the summer. The ground-colour, 

 too, of the body, instead of being blackish- or chocolate-bi-own, 

 was chestnut-brown; and the lower part of the neck and the 

 face — especially in the buck — of a leaden bluish-grey, while there 

 was a dai-k collar on the upper throat. The limbs were uniform 



^ Trails. Zool. Soc. vol. vii. p. 345. 

 ^ P. Z. ti. 18(58, p. 908. 



