76 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
specimen, however, always takes precedence over a citation, unless the 
description is so drawn from both as to involve a mixture of contra- 
dictory or impossible characters. In Pennant^s description, there is no 
incompatible statement^ and it seems clear that the primary basis of 
names later applied to it is unquestionably the specimen. This speci- 
men is still in existence in the British Museum where I personally 
examined it a number of years ago in company with Mr. Oldfield Thomas 
and Mr. Richard Lydekker who brought it to my attention. At that 
time I secured the photographs of it reproduced herewith. Its agree- 
ment with the figure published by Pennant and with a subsequent one 
by Hamilton Smith® is not absolute in every detail but furnishes such 
a close approximation as to leave no doubt of its identity. This then 
is in effect the type specimen and the principal basis of the technical 
name Cervus mexicanus which was first used by Zimmermann in 1777 
and later by Gmelin in 1788. It was adopted, principally from Gmelin, 
by later authors, almost without question, down to 1902 when Allen 
discarded it as unidentifiable. 
The abnormality of the type specimen is of a very common sort 
among various forms of the white-tailed deer and consists in an increased 
number of points and unusually heavy beams. The specimen, there- 
fore, is not unidentifiable except in the narrowest sense. As a member 
of the ‘‘virginianus” series of American deer, that is, the white-tailed 
deer, its identity is unquestionable and, if the name be taken from 
Zimmermann, as now seems necessary, it is earlier than any other 
except virginianus, to which it yields only page priority. 
In the absence of proof to the contrary, it seems necessary to accept 
Pennant’s belief that the specimen came from Mexico. Hence the 
name must be applied to some form of white-tailed deer from that 
country. The first use of the name in connection with specimens 
from a definite locality was that of Lichtenstein in 1827, his specimens 
being from the Valley of Mexico. Therefore, I proposed in 1902 that 
this locality be regarded as restrictively used by Lichtenstein. In 
effect, I designated a type locality, Lichtenstein merely furnished the 
^ If anything was derived from Hernandez, it was doubtless from the text of 
that author, which, as noted by Lydekker (Deer of All Lands, p, 263, 1898), 
applies exclusively to a deer, only the figure being composite. 
® In both figures the antlers are curiously reversed, the right being in the 
position of the left. 
