Pekin Sika 1 19 



In their second winter season the spotting was much less conspicuous, less 

 white was apparent on the buttocks, and the whole colour was browner. 



The history of this species is somewhat remarkable. In the spring of 

 1 86 1 the Zoological Society received from the late Mr. R. Swinhoe the 

 skins of three sikine deer which had been shot after the taking of the 

 Summer Palace, Pekin (12th October i860), when they would have 

 assumed the winter pelage. These specimens were shortly after transferred 

 to the British Museum, and one, a buck (No. 61. 6. 2. 1), was described 

 and figured by Dr. Gray in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1861, 

 under the name of Cervus pseudaxis, with the express statement that it was 

 killed in autumn. As now mounted it stands 3 feet 4 inches at the shoulder. 

 The hair is now much faded. In Dr. Gray's figure r the hair of the body 

 is a chestnut-brown colour, with numerous distinct white spots of con- 

 siderable size ; and there is a white glandular patch on the outer side of 

 the hind leg just below the hock. The neck is unspotted, and its lower 

 portion is of a slaty-blue colour, above which there is a dark collar, 

 followed by chestnut-brown, the lower part of the face being also bluish 

 gray. The under-parts are whitish ; and the tail is white with a narrow 

 black median line and tip, but there is no distinct black cross on the 

 buttocks. This deer, which is about two years old, is therefore quite 

 unlike C. ska in its winter coat. 



The female (No. 61. 6. 2. 2) appears to be similarly coloured, with 

 the exception that there is no slaty-blue on the neck, and the under-parts 

 are grayish, while there is a distinct black cross on the buttocks. Its 

 height at the shoulder is 2 feet 9 inches. 



In 1864 Mr. Swinhoe, being satisfied that the buck figured by Dr. 

 Gray was not the Cervus pseudaxis of Eydoux and Souleyet, proposed for 

 it the name of C. hortulorum. In the same letter the name C. mantchuricus 

 was suggested for certain specimens sent home alive at the same time for the 

 Zoological Gardens ; and it is quite evident that Swinhoe was satisfied of 

 the distinctness of the two forms. The young stag represented in the 

 plate differs from the type specimen mainly by the larger amount of black 

 and white on the buttocks, but as the Woburn hinds are precisely similar 



1 From a comparison with the original specimen, I find that the colouring of the figure is inexact in 

 several particulars, the under-parts being too white and the distribution of the colours on the neck very 

 badly shown. 



