OF NEPAL. 



145 



districts only as are closely screened by brushwood, in the midst of which 

 the Raiwa always has his lair. The species is gregarious — the herds 

 usually amounting to from twenty to thirty individuals. The mountaineers 

 denominate the animal, Ratwa. It is not known to the plains of India, 

 I believe ; nor to any other of the Indian mountains, as far as I am aware. 

 Whoever will turn to Shaw's General Zoology, vol. II. p. 301, will find 

 there the description of a small species of Deer denominated the Rib-faced 

 Deer, or Cervus Munfjac, belonging to Java and the Malayan Peninsula; 

 which I apprehend to be either a variety of the Ratwa, or another species 

 most closely allied to ours. But Shaw's description is so wretchedly 

 imperfect that it is impossible to speak with any confidence about it. I 

 recommend the curious in such matters to read attentively my description 

 and then to refer to Shaw's ; by which means they will be able to appre- 

 ciate the following remarks. The specific character of Cervus Muntjac 

 gives " cyliudric" pedestals to the horns, and makes the " upper fork" 

 of the horns " hooked." AVhoever had not seen the pedestals denuded of 

 hair M^ould take them to be cylindric, notwithstanding their really strong 

 lateral compression : and, as the tips of the horns are — at least in some 

 old males — strongly curved inwards and backwards, there is room to say 

 that the " upper fork is hooked," though I cannot admire the mode of expres- 

 sion ; because the insignificancy of the frontal fork or forks makes the 

 expression " upper fork " as applied to the beam or trunk of the horns 

 peculiarly apt to mislead. I have already intimated that the trifurcation of 

 the horns is probably not a general or permanent characteristic. Shaw 

 observes, that " tliat which chiefly distinguishes the Cervus Muntjac is the 

 appearance of three longitudinal, subcutaneous ribs, extending from the 

 horns to the eyes." The three ribs in question are, I suppose, tiic two 

 frontal fissures, and their intervallary crease, wliirli last, in the di i/ skin, 

 presents almost as decided an iiidc niatioa and apparent pcc\iliariiy of struc- 

 ture as the fissures on either side of it ; owiiii;- cliiclly to the constant 

 habit the living animal has of dilatm- the hssurcs, whereby the skin of 



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