736 



A general Review of the Species of true Stag^ or Elaphoid form of 

 Cervus, comprising those more immediately related to the Red Deer 

 of Europe. By Edward Blyth, Curator of the Museum of the 

 Bengal Asiatic Society. 



Of the various minor groups distinguishable in the great genus of 

 the Deer {Cervus, Lin.), a very obvious one is exemplified by the Eu- 

 ropean Stag (C Elaphus, Lin.), or Red Deer of Britain, to which the 

 Greek word EXa^o has hitherto been specifically attached ; and it is 

 accordingly known as the Elaphine group of Colonel Hamilton Smith, 

 or that of the Stags, properly so called. It consists of several large, 

 powerful, and comparatively long-bodied species, with cylindrical 

 antlers^^ bearing many tines or branches, and a short tail surrounded 

 by a pale disk. The males of them, and occasionally, I believe, the 

 females also, are furnished with upper canine teeth. Their coat is 

 more or less harsh, tubular, and spongy, and conceals in winter much 

 delicately fine wool ; being in the young speckled, or menilled, with 

 white, as in most, but not all, other Cervi ; which spotting disappears 

 with the first shedding of the hair, except, in some, a row along each 

 side of the spine, which however are considerably obscured, though 

 there is again a tendency in some species to resume the spots in sum- 

 mer livery, which is always more or less rufous (as in most other 

 Deer), that of winter being generally darker, especially on the neck, 

 limbs, and under-parts, and the female being mostly paler than the 

 male. The most peculiar character, however, of this group, though it 

 nevertheless does not occur in all the species which strictly pertain to 

 it, consists in the normal presence of a second basal tine to the antlers 

 {vide plate, — fig. 3, b,) which occurs normally in no other species of the 

 family : these two basal tines are denominated, in books on '* venerie," 

 the " brow antler" (a), and the " bez-antler" (b) ; for the word " an- 

 tler" referred to the principal tines, or branches, and not to the entire 



* In conformity with the practice of some recent naturalists, I apply this term to 

 the deciduous horns of the Deer family, as distinguished from those of other horned 

 ruminants, which are borne permanently, and have their bony core invested by a 

 cuticular or corneous sheath, likewise persistent, after having been (at least the 

 softer external layer) once shed in the young animal, and which partly corresponds 

 to the velvet, or hairy skin, of a growing Stag's antler, that withers and shreds off 

 when the vessels it encloses are obstructed by the final deposition of bone, forming 

 the hurr, or basal ring. 



