Characters 



2 35 



in the structure of the vomer and the lateral metacarpal bones must be 

 admitted ; but the backward production of the former bone in the American 

 deer may probably be regarded as a specialised feature, and, as already said, 

 I attach only minor importance to the lateral metacarpals. All who have 

 seen the animal alive can scarcely fail to recognise how unlike it is, both in 

 appearance and gait, to all the Old World deer of the present epoch ; and it 



Fig. 64. — Five successive pairs of Antlers of a Pcre David's Milou Deer at Woburn Abbey. In 1897 

 this stag shed its antlers twice. Since the last pair photographed, it shed a pair like those of the 

 second year, and by Christmas had grown a new pair like the last pair in the figure. Photographed 

 by the Duchess of Bedford. 



is probably more or less intimately related to the following extinct genus, 

 which there seems good reason for regarding as also related to the ancestral 

 stock of the modern American deer. To some of the latter the present 

 genus approximates by the unusual length of its tail. Its geographical 

 distribution also harmonises with its apparent affinity to the American deer, 

 a large number of animals from North-Eastern Asia being more or less 

 closely related to North American types. 



Distribution. — The eastern portion of the Eastern Holarctic region. 



