THE JAPANESE DEER, 
Cervus sika. 
Plate XV. 
The Sika or Japanese Deer, which is one of the most recent additions to the Society’s living series of this 
group of animals, is a native of the Japanese Islands, and was first made known to us, though somewhat 
imperfectly, through the researches of the Dutch Naturalist, Siebold, in that country. Little is told us in that 
part of the Fauna Japonica which embraces the results of Siebold’s discoveries among the Mammals of 
Japan, further than that this Deer is abundant in many parts of the empire, and seems to represent there the 
Red Deer of Europe. 
The Japanese Deer was first imported into England in 1860. A pair of these animals, obtained at 
Kanegawa in Japan, and brought to this country by Captain Rees, of the ship Sir F. Williams, were 
liberally presented to the Society’s Menagerie by J. Wilks, Esq, in July of that year. Not being able to 
recognize in them the Cervus sika of the Fauna Japonica, Dr. J. E. Gray considered them as belonging to a 
new and probably undescribed species, for which he proposed the name Rasa japonica. There is, however, I 
believe, little doubt, as Dr. Gray himself now acknowledges, that they are really of the species indicated by 
MM. Temminck and Siebold under the name Cervus sika, and that name, as being the first given, must 
consequently be retained for them. A second female of this Deer was received by the Society from their 
corresponding member, Mr. Edward Blyth, of Calcutta, in September 1861, and a third imported female was 
acquired by purchase in the same year. The females of this Deer have constantly bred in the Society’s 
Menagerie, and as the species is very hardy, and requires but little protection from the climate, there seems 
to be every prospect of its being easily established in our parks in this country. 
