1896.] DEER FROM NORTHERN CHINA. 931 
the buttocks surrounding the tail. The tail is remarkable for its 
extreme shortness. There was no fringe of long hair on the throat, 
but this may have been due to immaturity or to season. In their 
present state of development, no conclusions can be drawn from 
the antlers. Something over two years may be given as the 
probable age of the animal. 
Such was the coloration of the specimen when I first saw it at 
the beginning of August (see Plate XLVIIJ.). When I again 
visited Woburn in the middle of September, the summer coat was 
being replaced by the winterone. The most extraordinary change 
was the development of a large yellowish disk on the buttocks, 
including all the tail. This disk was clearly produced by a change 
in the colour of the hairs of the summer coat; but it appeared 
to be also developing in the winter coat. The general colour of 
the latter seemed to be bluish grey, or brewn, with a tendency to 
fawn on the neck. A distinct fringe had also developed on the 
throat. This was very thin, with bands of black, and white tips 
to the hairs: thus being quite different to the thick, uniformly- 
coloured fringe of the Wapiti and of the type of C. luehdorfi. 
Still later, the general colour of the coat became more Wapiti-like, 
and the caudal disk more distinct and brighter (see Plate XLIX.). 
From C. wanthopygus the Woburn deer appears sufficiently dis- 
tinguished by the shortness of the tail’; while there is no evidence 
that the former is ever without a caudal disk, or that the summer 
and winter coats are so widely different. Still, so far as I am 
aware, that form is only definitely known by the type specimen. 
Apparently, the species to which the deer under consideration 
approximates most closely is C. luehdorfi, although it is very 
difficult to believe that it is identical. The type specimens of 
Cervus luehdorfi, which comprised two pairs, were obtained from 
Transbaikalia, and were probably brought from the Bureatish 
Steppe of Northern Manchuria by nomads. The original descrip- 
tion* runs as follows :—‘‘ The Isubra Deer,” as it is called, ‘is 
intermediate in height between the European Red Deer (C. elaphus) 
and the North-American Wapiti (C. canadensis). In size it is 
closer to the former, in the shape of the antlers to the latter. Its 
hair is in winter brownish grey, in summer light brown ; the throat 
has a small whitish median streak ; the under-lip is whitish, with 
three black spots, one small one in the middle, and two larger 
ones on each side. The strong mane is like that of the Wapiti— 
in colour dark chestnut-brown, in places almost black ; in summer 
it disappears almost completely. The eye is smaller than in the 
Red Deer. The tail is much shorter than either the Red Deer or 
the Wapiti; in the male it is only two-thirds of the absolute length 
of that of the Red Deer; relatively it is much shorter, as the 
1 T assume that Milne-Edwards's plate is correct in this particular. If it 
be incorrect, and the present specimen turn out to belong to C. xanthopygus, 
that species will be much more distinct from the Red Deer than has hitherto 
been supposed. 
2 H. Bolau, Abh. Ver. Hamburg, vol. vii. p. 33, pl. iv. (1880). 
