1852.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society . 341 



Report of Curator, Zoological Department, 



Sir, — My Report for to-day records the donations received during 

 the last four months, which are as follow : — 



1 . From A. Campbell, Esq. Darjiling. Skin, in winter pelage, with 

 fine horns and hoofs complete, of the great Asiatic Stag, which I feel 

 satisfied is the Cervus Wallichii, Duvaucel. This noble animal is 

 the Tibetan C. ajjlnis of Mr. Hodgson, and there is scarcely a doubt 

 of its identity with the Stag of Kashmir (C. cashmirensis, Falconer, 

 MS., apud Gray), and little that it will prove to be the same as that of 

 northern China, and as the Irbisch or great Stag of Siberia mentioned 

 by Strahlenberg and Pennant.* It may possibly also be the Persian 

 Mar at ; though our impression is that the latter is more nearly 

 affined to C. elaphus, as the present species is to C. canadensis 

 (v. strongyloceros, occidentalis, &c.)f It, however, is a distinct 

 species from C. canadensis ; and most decidedly it is that well 

 figured in Mons. F. Cuvier's work by the name C. Wallichii, 

 approximated by me to C. canadensis in J. A. S, X, 745. In Mr. 

 Vigne's portfolio of drawings made in Kashmir and Little Tibet, was 

 a careful figure of this animal in its summer pelage, taken from a 

 captive individual in Kashmir ; and this was bright rufous, like the 



* " Stags are totally extirpated in Russia, but abound in the mountainous 

 southern tract of Siberia, where they grow to a size far superior to what is known 

 in Europe. The height of a grown hind is four feet nine inches and a half, its 

 length eight feet, and that of its head one foot eight inches and a half." Pennant's 

 ' Arctic Zoology,' p. 31. Strahlenberg distinguishes the Irbisch, or great Stag, 

 from the hubrissen, or common Stag, of Siberia. Like Eauus hemionus, Ovis 

 ammon, and other species, it doubtless ranges from Southern Siberia to Tibet, &c. 



f Since the above was in print, we have seen Mr. Gray's paper on the Cervidje, 

 read before the Zoological Society and re-published from its ' Proceedings' in Ann. 

 Mag. N. H., 2d series, IX, 413, (May, 1852;. We see nought in it to modify our 

 opinion regarding Cervus Wallichii. Mr. Gray may rest assured that there is 

 no cis-Himalayan (or sal-forest) stag of the Elaphine type (vide also Hodgson, in 

 /. A. S. XX, 392) : and when he refers to C. Wallichii as " the Stag of India," 

 he uses the term India in a most vague and latitudinarian sense, which cannot be 

 conceded ; it is little better when he refers even to C. frontatis as an Indian 

 animal. Mr. Gray pronounces the Persian Maral to be identical with C. Wal- 

 lichii. We only saw a living mature hind, and a young stag of the third (?) year, — 

 an antler of which is figured in J. A. S. X, 750, pi. fig. 10. In size and colour 

 the Maral would certainly seem to accord sufficiently with C. Wallichii ; and 

 Mr. Gray is probably right in identifying them, however remarkable the range of 

 climate, which indeed is considerable also, with C. canadensis and even C. 

 elaphus. 



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