292 BRITISH MAMMALS 



Persia. The True Red Deer has always been an indigenous 

 inhabitant of these islands since the Pleistocene period, though 

 it probably came here from two different directions/ and exhibited 

 several varieties, large and small. Lastly, there was the reindeer, 

 at one time as abundant in England, Ireland, and Scotland as 

 the red deer. 



Capreolus capriea. The Roe Deer 



The deer are often divided by zoologists into two groups, 

 both, unfortunately, with very long names. The first group, 

 which is called the 'Plesiometacarpalia, comprises the muntjacs 

 and their allies, and all the True Deer (Elaphine, Damine, Rusine, 

 Rucervine, and Axine) of the Old World. This group, which 

 in some respects is the most specialised, only retains the upper 

 fragments (near the wrist and the heel joints) of metacarpal and 

 metatarsal bones of the second and fifth toes. Only the upper 

 fragments of these remain, though the actual toes themselves are 

 still represented by outside hoofs (the " false " hoofs), and these 

 hoofs are supported sometimes by minute fragments of bone, 

 the remains of the lost phalanges. On the other hand, the 

 second group (which includes the reindeer, the elk, the roebuck, 

 the hornless Hydropotes of China, and all the American deer) 

 belongs to the division Telemetacarpalia^ in which that portion 

 of the metacarpal or metatarsal bones of the second and fifth 

 toes ordinarily retained is the lowest portion, equivalent to the 

 joints of our fingers. This bony support in the lower portions 

 of the limb to the two side toes gives a rather splay appearance 

 to the feet of the reindeer, elk, and some of the other deer. At 

 the same time, seeing how, in the feet of the reindeer, there are 

 occasionally fragmentary traces of the metacarpal bones above 

 as well as below, and that traces of a similar feature exist in 

 one or more of the muntjacs, and having regard to the ease 



^ Portugal and Belgium. Possibly there came first from Portugal or 

 Northern Spain the earlier, smaller red deer without the " bez " tine, which 

 is still found in North Africa and parts of Spain. From Belgium arrived 

 the large, fully antlered red deer. 



