18G0.] JProceedings of tlw Asiatic Society of Bengal. 91 



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

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

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

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

 species more or less (e. g. our Indian Bcira-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 ramift- 

 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 O. elaphus and its immediate congeners. The skull is indeed 

 a diminutive of that of C. elaphus : 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 imm ature animal, and their pedicles are elongated as in a 

 two orthree year oíd C. elaphus ! 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. elaphus and constantly (?) in 0. barbaeus ;t but the 



* In a letteí' 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. SI ka. Both are evidently distinct from tlie Formosan species, of which 

 a fine male and female are lodged in qnarters cióse to my house. A young male 

 lias 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 doe 3 ft. The buck has horns of about a foot long, with thrce anterior snagü 

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

 from the shoulders to the tail, where it expande hito the latter T (as it were), 

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

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

 also wbite. The top of tlie head is redder. Some long vvhitish hair on the throat 

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

 each tibia. Tliese last characters are more prominent in tlie buck." 



f In the series of horns of C. elaphus figured in Prpf. T. Bell's * History of 

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



N 2 



