DEER. 
361 
Distribution. 
Habits. 
The swamp-deer is confined to India, where it has a local 
distribution; being found along the foot of the Himalaya, from 
Assam to some distance west of the Jumna, and in some districts in the Indo- 
Gangetic plains, such as the Bengal sandarbans and Rohri in Sind. It is also 
common in certain portions of Central India, especially in the valley of the Narbada, 
where its habitat is limited to the area clothed with forests of the sal tree. 
The swamp-deer, although sometimes found in open forest, 
generally keeps in the outskirts of the woods, and frequents flat or 
undulating grass-lands, more or less interspersed with trees. In winter it is 
gregarious, herds of from thirty to fifty head being frequently met with, while in 
some districts herds of several hundreds have been observed during September and 
October. In Assam the bucks are met with singly, with the antlers for the most 
part still in the velvet, so that the shedding-time is probably, as a rule, not later 
than February. The swamp-deer is mainly a grazer, and it is said to be much less 
nocturnal in its habits than the 
sambar, being not uufrequently 
seen grazing in the forenoon, and 
again early in the afternoon. 
Scbomburgk’s Schomburgk’s deer 
Deer - (0. schomburgki), of 
Siam, is an allied species, of which 
the antlers, as shown in the figure 
on this page, are distinguished by 
the extreme shortness of the beam 
below the bifurcation, and the 
great length of the brow - tine. 
Each antler usually carries five 
points; and specimens vary in 
length from 27 to 30 inches in good 
examples. 
An altogether 
unique form of antler 
is that of Eld’s deer ( C . eldi), as 
shown in the figure on p. 340. 
Here the brow-tine curves down 
over the forehead, so as to form an 
almost continuous sweep with the 
beam; the latter being curved at 
first backwards and outwards, and 
then slightly forwards, after which it divides into a short fork, of which the two 
prongs may split up into as many as eight or ten points. The upper surface of the 
brow-tine often carries a number of short points, and there is very generally a 
distinct snag at the point where that tine joins the beam. In some cases the 
upper part of the beam is much flattened. In height this species stands nearly 
the same as the swamp-deer. In winter the colour of the fur of the bucks is 
dark brown, tending to black, but in summer it is fawn-coloured, nearly like that 
Eld’s Deer. 
HEAD OF SCHOMBURGK S DEER. 
(From Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc., 1S77.) 
