1SG0.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 91 



parallel as our Bengal Sandheads. All that Mr. Swinhoe says of the 

 animal is that " the Formosa Deer are of a reddish colour with 

 white spots, and may probably be the Indian species." The spots, 

 I suspect, indicate the summer coat of the animal, as in various other 

 species more or less (e. g. our Indian Bar a- sing' ha and Hog Deer, the 

 European Fallow Deer, &c), and are not permanent at all seasons as 

 in the Axis.* Whether in the details of the skull, or in the ramifi- 

 cation of the horns, there can be no hesitation about the affinities of 

 the Formosan Deer. It has well developed upper canines, which are 

 wanting in the Axis ; and the same large round infra-orbital foramina 

 as in C. elaphtjs and its immediate congeners. The skull is indeed 

 a diminutive of that of 0. elaphtjs : but while all the permanent 

 teeth are complete and well worn down (far more so than in an Axis 

 skull with fully developed horns), the horns might be supposed to 

 indicate an immature animal, and their pedicles are elongated as in a 

 two or three, year old C. elaphtjs ! Either, therefore, the skull is that 

 of an aged animal with declining horns, which is scarcely consistent 

 with the condition of the frontal and other sutures (any more than with 

 the length of the horn-pedicles, as compared with other species), or 

 the horns may be supposed to represent the typical development, cor- 

 responding to that occasional in a young animal of the larger typical 

 Stags ! They are little longer than the skull, do not spread much, 

 and incline inwards at the tips ; are slender, and the branches or 

 antlers are mere snags ; there is no ' bez-antler,' as commonly in 

 young C. EEAPHUS and constantly (?) in C. babbartjs ;f but the 



* In a letter received as this was going to press, Mr. Swinhoe describes the 

 animal in its winter vesture. " The Stag from the north I only know from 

 hearsay. A species from Japan a neighbour has in keeping, and this 1 take to be 

 true C. SIKA. Both are evidently distinct from the Formosan species, of which 

 a fine male and female are lodged in quarters close to my house. A young male 

 has just been shipped for Leyden. 1 give a few remarks as to the peculiarities 

 of the living pair. They were too wild to permit of my taking exact measure- 

 ments of them. The buck stands about 4 ft. from the forehead to the ground ; 

 the doc 3 ft. The buck has horns of about a foot long, with three anterior snags 

 and one posterior. General tint reddish mouse-colour, with a black dorsal line 

 from the shoulders to the tail, where it expands into the latter T (as it were), 

 the buttocks beneath it and each side of the short tail being pure white. Inside 

 of ears, base of the back of cars, under muzzle, throat, belly and inner thighs, 

 also white. The top of the head is redder. Some long whitish hair on the throat 

 and between the legs : a roundish tuft of long while hair on the outer side of 

 each tibia. These last characters are more prominent in the buck/' 



f In the series of horns of C. eiapiius figured in Prof. T. Bell's ' History of 

 British Quadrupeds,' the' bez-antler' is omitted throughout! 



N 2 



