560 MR. R. I. POCOCK ON A 



very short white tail and a large lohite dish tipon the croup*. 

 The figure shows no less clearly that the caudal disk in size and 

 extension over the croup, reaching neaily to its summit, resembled 

 that of a Wapiti but was white instead of yellowish buff in 

 colour. The antlers were short, only a little exceeding the head 

 in length, and carried a brow and a bez tine, the beam being 

 simply forked and the trez tine absent. The brow and bez tines 

 were close together at the base and diverged at about an angle of 

 45°, the brow tine projecting straight forwards and the bez in- 

 clining obliquely upwards. The beam, which receded at an obtuse 

 angle of about 135° from the bez, appears from the figure to 

 have formed a fairly regular arch, there being no indication that 

 eithei- of the terminal tines was turned inwards. 



For reasons given below I am quite of Hamilton Smith's 

 opinion (Griffith's An. King. iv. p. 103, 1827) that these antlers 

 show the stag to have been an old animal at the time the 

 illustration was made. 



A pair of the antlers of this species was figured and described 

 by Blyth (J. A. S. Bengal, x. fig. 7 of pi. facing p. 750, 1841) 

 and subsequently stated by this author in the same journal 

 (vol. XXX. p. 188, 1861) to have belonged to the animal of which 

 a, sketch was sent to Ouvier. They were judged by Blyth 

 to have been produced by a stag in its third year. It will be 

 noticed, however, that neither antler of the pair has a trez tine ; 

 and since in the Red Deer this tine normally, at all events, 

 appears in the antlers of the third year, one would expect it to 

 be piesent in a specimen of C. wallichii of that age. It will 

 also be seen that in the left antler figured by Blyth, the beam is 

 straight and terminates in a single spike, while in the right 

 antler the beam is forked and much more curved. The want 

 of symmetry between the two in these and other particulars, 

 coupled with the absence of the tines mentioned, forcibly 

 suggests to me degeneration with age. It is, at all events, quite 

 clear that these antlers were not those carried by the stag at the 

 time the figure sent to Cuvier by Duvaucel was drawn. They 

 were probably a later growth and still more decadent. Even the 

 right antler was less curved than were those of the type, as figured ; 

 and although the basal juxtaposition and mutual divergence of 

 the brow and bez tines were much the same in the two cases, the 

 angle of their divergence from the beam was in both instances 

 much smaller. But, although these difierences and resemblances 

 between the two sets of antlers are interesting, I do not think 

 they afibrd much clue to the affinity of C tvalUchii, since these 

 antlers were, in my opinion, obviously degenerate. 



The specimen the Society has just received is a comparatively 

 large Stag, though not approaching a Wapiti in size. It stands 

 about 4 ft. 3 ins. (just under 13 hands) at the shoulders. It 

 has a long face, a small sleepy looking eye, and its longish ears 



* The italics are mine. — R. I. P 



