CHARACTERS OF ELAPHURUS AND OTHER CERVIDiE. 



203 



secretion, representing, in the author's opinion, the most rudi- 

 mentary or earliest stage of an intercligital gland." How little 

 this account accords with the actual facts may he seen by com- 

 paring it with the description given above. I was completely 

 misled by Flower into imagining that the interdigital areas in the 

 Pudu resemble those of Cervus, surprising as such a conclusion 

 was. There is in reality no such resemblance. The depressions 

 are like those of the hind foot of the Fallow-Deer {Dama dama) 

 and of the Muntjacs (Muntiacus = Cervulus) and Elapliodu,s, 

 which I described and figured in 1910; that is to say, they 



Text-fio-ure 15. 



A. Base of ear of JEla'phurus daviclianns, cut open. 



B. Tlie same of Odocoileiis virginiamis peruvianus. 



C. The same of Tragulus. 



D. The same of Pudu pudu. 



E. The same of Muntiacus muntjaJc. 



belong to what I believe to be the most primitive type of pedal 

 gland in the Cervidse — a long deep depression the floor of which 

 is in contact, or nearly so, with the integument of the back of the 

 pastern. No other genus of Cervidse inhabiting America has 

 feet of this type, so far as is known, Cervus canadensis may be 

 set aside as an alien from Asia ; but in Rangifer, Odocoileus, and 

 Mazama the glandular depression of the hind foot is a deep pouch 

 with constricted orifice, whereas in the front foot it is a small 

 shallow pit, the heel-tie in both cases being deep. 



