86 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



It is doubtful, according to Baron Cuvier, whether the 

 species is originally European, although it is said to be 

 found in a wild state in Lithuania, Moldavia, Greece, 

 Persia, and even China. The spotted variety of England 

 is likewise reported to have been brought from Bengal, 

 where none are now known. It is not impossible that the 

 Axis of India, China, and Persia has led to this mistake, 

 for we find the Spotted Buck noticed in Gwillirris Heraldry, 

 fourth edition, 1660, page 171, where he quotes it as borne 

 in ancient coats of arms, and therefore anterior at least to 

 the British intercourse with India. As the Platogna of the 

 modern Greeks is allowed to be the Fallow-deer, it must 

 also be admitted that it must be wild, for there are no gen- 

 tlemen's parks in Turkish Europe, the grand seignor's 

 perhaps excepted. In Spain they are reported to be nearly 

 as large as the Stag, and in Sardinia they are numerous. 

 Hence we may infer that in southern and central Europe 

 Fallow-deer are indigenous. Baron Cuvier shews that the 

 ancients have known it, but they want precision in their de- 

 scriptions for us to fix the names which they applied, with 

 unobjectionable certainty. With his usual ability and learn- 

 ing he points out the itp% of Aristotle, the Platyceros of 

 Pliny, and the Dama of Virgil and Ovid as referrible to our 

 animal. The word Dama usually considered as of Latin 

 origin, may however be viewed as derived from the Celtic 

 roots, Da, Daa, Dun, from whence our Doe-, Dun being 

 almost literally translated by hill, height, down. We see 

 Ossian's heroes, hunt the Dun-deer, or deer of the hills, 

 and to whatever date we refer these Gaelic fragments, they 

 are anterior to modern importation. Thus also, Daa in the 

 ancient Danish, Dam in the Teutonic, are words more na- 

 turally referred to that most ancient language of Western 

 Europe than to the Latin : if the Romans bestowed the name, 

 they must also have introduced the animal, for it would be 

 singular if a species at present common from Sweden to 

 Gibraltar, and from Ireland to Constantinople, should have 



