i 9 4 



Rucervine Group 



Characters. — Height at shoulder about 3 feet 5 inches ; hair in winter 

 rather long and coarse. General colour of pelage uniform brown, darkest 

 on the nose and the upper surface of the tail, and lightest on the cheeks 

 and flanks ; under-parts, lower surface of tail, and lower lip whitish ; a 

 tinge of rufous on the upper lip, the back of the head, and limbs ; the hair 

 on the front of the lower part of the fore-leg elongated to form a fringe. 

 Antlers large, complex, smooth, and polished ; the brow-tine very long, 

 frequently forked, and arising nearly at a right angle from the beam ; the 



Fin. 53. — Front view of Frontlet and Antlers of Schomhurgk's Deer. From a specimen in the 



British Museum. 



beam very short and more or less laterally compressed, then forking dicho- 

 tomously, with each of the main branches about equally developed, and 

 again forking in a similar manner, to terminate in long cylindrical tines ; in 

 immature males the hinder branch of the main fork is less developed than 

 the front one. 



This handsome deer is very rare in collections, although several fine 

 pairs of antlers are exhibited in the British Museum. Never having seen 

 an entire specimen myself, the foregoing characteristics are taken from Sir 

 Victor Brooke's description of a mounted male skin in the Paris Museum, 



