CHAPTER XXIII 
cervid/E (< continued) 
Next to the red-deer is the fallow-deer (Cervus 
dama). Although this species is most common, it 
is declared by some to be not indigenous to Europe, 
but upon the authority of Cuvier it was originally 
introduced from Barbary. I should much doubt 
that fact, as the deer is not an animal that belongs 
to the African continent, and is nowhere found 
except on the north coast bordering the Mediter¬ 
ranean. It should therefore be more natural that 
the Cervus dama (platyceros of the ancients) was 
introduced into Barbary from Southern Europe. 
The great Sahara desert has intervened as though 
it were an ocean, and has completely prohibited the 
passage of the fauna from north to south, therefore 
the deer which are found in Barbary can have no 
affinity with the fauna of Africa. 
The fallow - deer does not run wild in Great 
Britain like the red-deer, but is confined in parks. 
As late as 1835 there were large numbers that were 
unfenced in the New Forest in Hampshire, and 
I can well remember seeing them in 1832 
