220 Water-Deer 



As additional characters of the skull, it may be noticed that the auditory 

 bulla 1 on its lower surface are greatly inflated, and that the hinder angle of 

 the lower jaw is much produced backwards, forming a compressed semi- 

 circular process projecting behind the level of the condyle by which the 

 jaw is articulated with the skull. The vomer does not divide the aperture 

 of the posterior nostrils. The hind-feet have deep glands between the 

 hoofs, but in the front pair the corresponding glands are small and shallow. 



In his Catalogue of Ruminants the late Dr. Gray classed the Chinese 

 water-deer with the musk-deer in a separate family. The resemblance 

 between the two is, however, entirely superficial ; Professor Garrod and 

 others having shown that their internal anatomy is quite distinct. From 

 the structure of the ankle-joint and the lateral metacarpal bones, as well as 

 from the inflated auditory bulla; of the skull, there is probably no very 

 close affinity with the muntjacs and their allies. Sir Victor Brooke, who 

 at first thought the water-deer might be related to the rusine deer, sub- 

 sequently came to the conclusion that its affinities were rather with the 

 roes, which it resembles in the structure of the lateral metacarpals and the 

 form of the lower jaw. On this subject the late Mr. W. A. Forbes, after 

 a study of certain parts of its internal anatomy, wrote as follows : — " Sir 

 Victor Brooke has been led, from a consideration of other points, to 

 associate Hydropotes and Capreo/us with Alces, as a group per se, with affinities 

 in some points in the direction of the Old World, in others in that of the 

 New World forms. It appears to me that the additional evidence in this 

 paper, especially that derived from the resemblance of the generative 

 organs, is strongly in favour of this association, so far, at least, as Hydropotes 

 and Capreo/us are concerned. The general similarity in appearance of 

 Capreo/us to Hydropotes has often struck me, and has even, I believe, led 

 others into the error of mistaking one for the other ! That Hydropotes is in 

 no way intimately related to Moschus has been already amply demonstrated." 

 I can fully endorse the external resemblance between the water-deer and 

 the roes, when seen at a distance in a park ; although the difference in 

 their movements affords a mode of discrimination. Probably Hydrelaphus 

 is an ancient type, although no fossils have been referred to it. The 

 lower jaw of a deer from the Miocene of Sansan in France has, however, been 

 described under the name of Strongy/ognat/ius, 1 which has the same peculiar 



1 Filhol, Mamm. Fosi.de Sansan, p. 265, plate xxx ( 1 89 1 ) ; originally named Platyprosopus. 



