738 | Hornless Ruminants. 
The water-deer (Hydropotes inermis) is a singular deer with- 
out horns, and with large projecting canine teeth. It is found in 
China in the low meadows and scrubs bordering the rivers, and 
is remarkable for its excessive fertility, the female being said to 
produce six or seven young at a birth. 
“In the large riverine islands of the Yangtsze, above Chin- 
kiang,” Mr. Swinhoe tells us, “these animals occur in large t 
numbers, living among the tall rushes that are there grown for f 
thatching and other purposes. The rushes are cut down in tit 
spring; and the deer then swim away to the main shore and te 
tire to the cover of the hills. G 
“In autumn, after the floods, when the rushes are again grown, 
they return with their young, and stay the winter through. 
‘They are said to feed on the rush-sprouts and coarse grasses, 
and they doubtless often finish off with a dessert from the sweet- 
potatoes, cabbages, etc., which the villagers cultivate on the 
islands during winter. BEO 
“ Fortunately for the deer, the Chinese have an extraordinary 
dislike for their flesh. They are therefore only killed for the 
European markets, and sold at a low price. The venison ® 
coarse and without much taste, but is considered tolerable or 
want of better; it is the only venison procurable in Shanghai: 
Specimens of the latter are to be seen in the Zoological So ; 
ety’s Garden, London. i ; 
Passing from living to extinct forms of deer, there has 7 s 
noted the discovery of polled or hornless skulls of ‘the. extinct 
Irish elk. But some much more remarkable discoveries have 
been made in the history of the species-life or development. "i 
is found that the horn-development, in complexity, is 
parallel to that seen in the development of horns in the individual 
Of to-day. Professor Boyd-Dawkins? states that in the lower : 
meiocene “no member of the family is possessed of astien 
They are hornless, —polled. In the mid-meiocene strata Pe 
fessor Gaudry notes small branching erect antlers persist 
throughout life, and characterized by the absence of à p 
This is considered by Professor Leidy as a form interm® It 
between the antlers of deer and the horns of the antelope: w 
may fairly claim to be the most rudimentary form of antler p 
longing to a type no longer represented. The true starting P 
of the antlered deer of the post-meiocene age is presented ion 
the simple forked crown of the C. dicroceros of the mid-m™ 
: 7 "Early Man in Britain. 
