MI-LOU AND SAMBAR 
semicaptivity. At any rate, the fact is a very fortunate one, 
for in 1894 the Hun River overflowed and breached the walls 
of the park, allowing the herds to escape into the country, 
where every animal seems to have been killed by the famine- 
stricken peasants. Thus this species of deer, preserved for cen- 
turies only in the Peking park, must now be revived from stock 
carried to the other side of the world out of scientific curiosity. 
Pére David’s deer, as it is called after its scientific discoverer, is of 
medium size, with a round, donkeylike body, robust limbs, and a tail 
that hangs to the hocks. The color is pale fawn gray, little altered by the 
changing seasons. The antlers are heavy and of the forked type, the hinder 
main prong reaching far backward 
before itself forking; altogether, they 
are unique in pattern, and an addi- 
tional singularity is the fact that in 
England, at least, the bucks shed and 
renew their antlers twice a year. 
Related to the swamp deer by 
the roughened and simple form 
of the antlers is the 
sambar, — the ordi- 
nary woodland stag of all south- 
eastern Asia, various varietics 
carrying the race clear to the 
Philippines. It wanders about 
in small parties or alone, feeds 
usually at night, and mainly 
on grass and certain wild fruits, 
but also browses much. A good 
sambar stag will weigh five hun- 
dred to six hundred pounds, 
and his antlers will form a triangle of forty-five inches along 
each heavy rough beam and across from tip to tip; a peculiarity 
is that the shedding sometimes occurs only once in two or three 
397 
Sambar. 
Copyright, N. Y. Zl. Soe. Sanborn, Phot. 
A JAPANESE SIKA. 
