Pampas Deer 289 



The above description is taken from Paraguayan and Argentine ex- 

 amples, — the B/astoceros azarce of Fitzinger. In the true Brazilian campestris, 

 which the latter writer regards as a distinct species, the colour tends more 

 to yellowish gray, and upper canines are stated to be always wanting. 

 These, however, are occasionally not developed in males from Argentina 

 and Paraguay. Fitzinger states that the Brazilian form lacks the strong 

 scent of the Argentine race, but this is denied by Dr. Goeldi. In any case, 

 the difference between the northern and southern races is not of more than 

 sub-specific importance. A young specimen from Santa Fe, in the chaco 

 districts of Argentina, living at Woburn Abbey in 1897, an ^ forming the 

 subject of Fig. 76, had a very strongly marked black patch and line on the 

 crown of the head, and the white of the buttocks bordered by a thin black 

 line ; the base of the upper surface of the tail being also black, and the 

 general colour brown fawn. Such slight differences can, however, scarcely 

 be regarded as indicating even a distinct sub-species. 



The Brazilian Cervus comosus was regarded by Fitzinger as a smaller and 

 longer-haired form allied to the marsh-deer ; but Burmeister has shown 

 that it was founded on an old male of the present species, in which, as is 

 commonly the case in aged examples of that sex, the hairs on the buttocks, 

 tail, and under-parts had become greatly elongated. 



A fraction over \\\ inches is the length of the longest pair of antlers of 

 this species recorded in Mr. Rowland Ward's book ; the specimen being 

 in the British Museum. 



Although this species is universally known by the specific name of 

 campestris, there is no justification for the suppression of the Linnean 

 bezoartica, which was applied to a South American deer with cylindrical, 

 three-tined antlers ; such deer being evidently the present species. It may 

 be added that although the names campestris and leucogaster date from the 

 same year, the former is the earlier, as it is quoted in Schreber's work, in 

 which the latter is given for the first time. 



Distribution. — The open campos of Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay to the 

 pampas of Argentina and Northern Patagonia, and also extending into the 

 chaco, or wooded country of Argentina in the neighbourhood of Santa Fe. 



Habits. — The veado campeiro, as this species is called in parts of Brazil, 

 differs from the veado galheiro by being an inhabitant of dry open plains, 

 and also by the strong disagreeable odour emitted by bucks after their first 



2 p 



