Characters 



Including, then, all these exclusively American deer in one genus, the 

 next question is the name to be used. Except one, the earliest is Mazama 

 of Rafinesque, but as this name included several animals, Dr. Baird in his 

 North American Mammals (p. 665) urged that it should not be used at all, 

 although it undoubtedly included some of the American deer. It was 

 employed by Hamilton Smith in 1827 for the Virginian deer group, the 

 brockets being separated as Subulo. According to Dr. C. H. Merriam, 1 the 

 deer included by Rafinesque was one of the brockets, which by elimination 

 becomes the type of the genus. If used at all, the genus must therefore 

 be typified by the brockets ; but if, as is done here, all the true American 

 deer, except the pudus, are regarded as forming one genus, Mazama, 

 as the earliest satisfactory name, may be employed for the entire group. 



As already mentioned, there are at present no sufficient means of dis- 

 tinguishing from Mazama, in its widest sense, the Old World fossil deer 

 constituting the genus Anoglochis, although if the whole organisation of the 

 latter were known, such might be found. Anoglochis, it may be observed, 

 antedates all names except Mazama and one other. 



As noticed in the introductory chapter, and also on page 216, it has been 

 generally considered that Mazama traces its origin to the extinct North 

 American Cosoryx and Blastomeryx, but the extinct fork-antlered deer of 

 Europe suggest that its origin was rather in the Old World, as it is difficult 

 to realise the independent origin of such essentially similar types. More- 

 over, if the American deer originated in the New World from forms with 

 permanent antlers, they must have developed the deciduous antlers in- 

 dependently of the deer of the Old World, which, as remarked by Messrs. 

 Scott and Osborn, is somewhat difficult to believe. 



Whether they were developed in the Old World or the New, it is evident 

 that the American deer originated in the northern hemisphere, and that 

 they are comparatively modern immigrants into South America, where they 

 now attain their maximum development. For a long period, during 

 which the isthmus of Panama was non-existent, the fauna of South 

 America was quite unlike that of North America, and it was not till about 

 the commencement of the Pliocene epoch that a land-connection was 

 established which permitted the deer and other northern types of mammals 

 to flow into South America. That the simple-antlered South American 



1 Science, ser. 2, vol. i. p. 208 (1895). 



