164 
W. Theobald —Note on Some of the Symbols 
[No. 3, 
The horns or antlers of deer arc branched and deciduous, and capa¬ 
ble of being periodically shed and renewed ; the horns of other rumi¬ 
nants are unbranched, persistent and supported by bony cores, as in the 
oxen and antelopes, and these appendages are so characteristic of the 
animal, that to represent an ox with the curved and knotted horns on 
its head of an Ibex or the antlers of a hara-singha or stag, would be as 
monstrous as the figure presented by ‘ Bottom,’ disguised with an ass’s 
head, or the unnatural productions of heraldic imagery. Now on a coin, 
it were more easy to represent with effect, a branched horn or antler, 
such as characterise a ‘ deer,’ than a simple unbranched one, such as is 
invariably borne by a bovine ruminant; but on none of the above four 
coins, all perhaps above the average of execution, nor indeed on the 
majority of the coins in question, in either silver or copper, is there any 
indication of an attempt to represent the animal with a branched horn, 
or the antler of a deer, and hence I think we may fairly hesitate to 
believe that a ‘ deer ’ was the animal intended. 
In the best executed specimens the tail is ‘ bushy’ and drawn with 
sufficient character, to fully warrant Mr. Thomas in describing it, as the 
tail of a yak. What induced Mr. Thomas to consider this yak’s tail, as 
grafted on to the body of a ‘ deer’ it is needless to enquire, but the ques¬ 
tion for us to consider is, if the animal is not rather a yah than a deer ? 
Professor Wilson in his description of the coin figured in Ariana 
Antiqua gives a clue to the correct determination of this point, and differs 
from Mr. Thomas in describing a symbol (No. 1646 a. a. PI. XXII) as 
occurring over the head of the animal. This ‘ symbol ’ (as Professor 
Wilson correctly regards it) Mr. Thomas evidently regarded as con¬ 
stituting part of the horns, which he consequently described as “ fanci¬ 
fully curved,” and in this he is followed (though inferentially only and 
without special comment or allusion) by Babu Bajendralala Mitra; but 
the distinctness of the figure of Wilson’s coin a fully supports the view 
that the object or symbol in question has no connection with the horns 
of the animal, however much that may seem to be the case in less care¬ 
fully executed or less well preserved coins. 
In the coin d in my own possession the complete isolation of the 
symbol in question from the horns of the animal is as clearly marked 
as in Wilson’s specimen, and is rendered more striking and obvious by 
the somewhat different ‘ pose ’ of the animal, which offering a side pro¬ 
file, displays but a single horn, whereas Wilson’s figure exhibits both. 
With equal clearness is the distinct separation between the symbol 
and the horns of the animal represented on Prinsep’s Plate XXXII, 
J. A. S. B. 1838, figs. 4 and 5, where the artist’s intention to depict two 
cobras facing each other can hardly be questioned. These coins are of 
