PART II.— DESCRIPTIVE 



A. The True Deer — Sub-Family Cervin^e 



I\ this section are included all the existing members of the family ex- 

 cept the musks ; an essential feature being the absence of a gall-bladder to 

 the liver. The brain, too, is characterised by the great development of the 

 convolutions on its hemispheres; and there are certain other peculiar 

 features in the internal organs- — especially those of the female — which aid 

 in distinguishing between the two sub-families. A difference in the 

 structure of the skull is noticed under the heading of the second sub-family. 



With the exception of the existing Chinese water-deer and certain 

 extinct forms, antlers are always developed in the male, and constitute one 

 of the most convenient, and apparently also one of the most natural, means 

 of dividing the members of the sub-family into generic and sub-generic 

 groups. In his well-known synopsis of the deer, the late Sir Victor Brooke 

 attributed but little or no classificatory value to these sexual appendages, 

 but attached prime importance to the lateral (2nd and 5th of the typical 

 series of five) metacarpal bones, which show two distinct types of ossifica- 

 tion. In the one type, which is found in almost all the Old World deer, 

 these bones are represented by their upper (proximal) extremities ; whereas 

 in the other their lower (distal) ends are alone retained, and serve for the 

 support of the bones of the lateral or spurious hoofs. To this type belong 

 all the New World deer with the exception of the wapiti. Impressed with 

 the importance of this distinction, Sir Victor divided the deer into the two 

 sections Telemetacarpi and Vlestometacar.pt ; the former including the genera 

 Rangifer, Alces, Hydre/ap/ius, (J</preo/us, Mazama, and Pudim, and the latter all 

 the rest. This classification has, however, the disadvantage of sundering 

 from the American deer such a species as Pere David's deer, which re- 

 sembles the former in having antlers of a forked type without a brow-tine. 



