DEER. 
3 6 9 
accompanying illustration, the antlers are extremely minute and unbranched, while 
their supports take the form of long pedicles, which, instead of diverging as in the 
muntjacs, are convergent. Then, again, the rib-like ridges occurring on the face of 
the muntjacs are absent, as are likewise some small glands found on the forehead of 
the latter. Like the muntjacs, the bucks of these two deer are furnished with long 
tusks in the upper jaw, although their extremities are not turned outwards. In 
botli species the hair is so coarse as to have been compared to small quills; and on 
the forehead the hair is lengthened so as to form a kind of horseshoe-like crest on 
the tuft. 
In Michie’s deer the general colour of the fur is greyish black, each individual 
hair being white for a considerable distance above its base, and the face and neck 
uniformly dark grey; while the crest on the forehead and portions of the ears are 
dark brown. In the Tibetan tufted deer the fur on the head, neck, and fore-quarters 
is dark brown, each hair being brown above and whitish beneath, while a pnre 
white ring divides the two colours; consequently there is a speckled appearance in 
the fur of the anterior part of the animal. In the hinder part of the body the 
white rings on the hairs are absent, and the colour of the fur is consequently 
uniform dark brown, becoming of a still deeper shade on the feet and the crest on 
the forehead. The ears have a transverse black bar, with white tips and edges; 
the under-parts of the body and the lower surface of the tail being likewise white. 
Michie’s deer is abundant in the reeds bordering the rivers in the neighbour¬ 
hood of Ningpo and other parts of Eastern China. 
The Reindeer. 
Genus Rangifer. 
The reindeer {Rangifer taranclus) differs from all other members of the deer- 
tribe in that the antlers are not borne only by the male, although those of the 
female are of smaller dimensions; and together with all the deer remaining for 
notice, it differs from those already described in the structure of the fore-foot. In 
these, which, with the single exception of the wapiti, are Old World types, the lateral 
metacarpal bones of the fore-foot, which originally supported the lateral toes, are 
represented only by two small splints lying on either side of the upper end of the 
cannon-bone, as shown in the foot of the sheep on p. 370. On the other hand, in 
the reindeer and the under-mentioned genera, these same lateral metacarpal bones 
are represented only by their lower extremities, and thus still support the toe-bones 
of the lateral hoofs, as shown in the figure on the next page. This difference may 
not, perhaps, appear to be of much significance, but as there are other indications of 
affinity between the members of the two groups into which the deer family is 
thereby divided, it is probably of considerable importance in classification. The 
majority of the deer belonging to the present group are either common to the 
northern regions of both hemispheres, or are restricted to the New World, the roe 
and the Chinese water-deer being the only exclusively Old World forms. 
Reverting to the consideration of the reindeer, we have first to observe that in 
addition to the presence of antlers in both sexes, the genus is distinguished from 
VOL. ii.— 24 
