724 Note on the Cervus Elaphus. [No. 117. 



snags distinguishing the Red Deer of Europe ; and, if so, I should in- 

 cline to my old opinion, and regard the difference between the two 

 animals as merely a variety. But, on the other hand, the noble horns of 

 our present subject seem so fully developed, and his age so far from 

 juvenile immaturity, that we may reasonably suppose these horns to 

 exhibit the normal form ; and, in that case, the species will be distinct 

 from C Elaphus, and may be called C. Affinis, from its extreme affinity 

 thereto. The pedicles are tolerably elevate ; the burrs rather small ; 

 the two basal antlers of each beam of equal size, nearly straight, and 

 so forward in direction as to overshadow the face to the end of the 

 nasals : these basal antlers are larger than the royal, and even than the 

 terminal antler, and are put off from the anterior side of the beam, one 

 above the other, with an interval of about inches two and a half, the 

 beam continuing as thick there as it is close above the burr, where the 

 lower antler divaricates. Having put off these basal snags, the beam 

 reclines considerably, and in the style of Axis thirteen inches, and then 

 gives off the median snag from the anteal aspect as before, but with a 

 more upward direction. A foot higher is the terminal fork, the 

 prongs of which radiate laterally and equally from each other, so that 

 it is difficult to say which is the beam and which the antler; more 

 especially as the inner prong (so to speak) of this fork is the longer, 

 though slighter, and the outer one the thicker, though shorter. We 

 now leave our " true Stag of the saul forest," or Cervus Affinis, nob, 

 to the discretion of the European Master of Museum and Library. 

 Specific character (?) C. Affinis, Stag of India, very closely affined to the 

 Red Deer of Europe. Horns very ample, pale, smooth, rounded, having 

 two basal antlers and one median directed forwards from each beam, but 

 the crown simply forked as in Eusa and Axis; standing in a natural 

 arrangement between Elaphus and IVallichii, but larger than either. 



B. H. Hodgson. 

 Nepal, June, 1841. 



