222 
2. Synopsis of the species of Deer (Cervina), with the 
Description of a new species in the Gardens of the 
Society. By J. E. Gray* Esq., F.R.S. etc. 
(Mammalia, PI. XXII.—XXVIII.) 
The Deer, spread over all parts of the Globe, are easily recognized 
by their deciduous horns, which are covered, when they are first de¬ 
veloped, with a hairy skin. 
It has been supposed that the Deer were not to be found in Africa, 
hut the discovery of a species in Barbary has dispelled that idea ; they 
are rare in that extensive quarter of the world, their place being sup¬ 
plied by Antelopes. 
Since the publication of Cuvier’s Essay on Deer, in which he de¬ 
scribed several species from the study of the horns alone, many zoolo¬ 
gists have almost entirely depended on the horns for the character of 
the species, and Colonel Hamilton Smith has been induced to sepa¬ 
rate some species on the study of a single horn. But the facilities 
which menageries have afforded of studying these animals, and watch¬ 
ing the variations which the horns of the species present, have shown 
that several most distinct but allied species, as the Stag of Canada 
and India, have horns so similar that it is impossible to distinguish 
them by their horns. On the other hand, it has been shown that 
animals of the same herd, or even from the same parents, and some¬ 
times even the same specimen, under different circumstances, in suc¬ 
ceeding years have produced horns so unlike one another in size and 
form, that they might have been considered, if their history was not 
known, as horns of very different species. These observations, and 
the examination of the different cargoes of foreign hom which are 
imported for the uses of the cutler, each cargo of which is generally 
collected in a single locality, and therefore most probably belong to a 
single species peculiar to the district,—have proved to me that the 
horns afford a much better character to separate the species into 
groups, than to distinguish the allied species from one another. 
Colonel Hamilton Smith, in his Monograph of the Genus, sepa¬ 
rated them into subgenera according to the form of the horns. 
In the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1836 I drew atten¬ 
tion to the glands on the hind-legs as affording very good characters 
to arrange the subgenera proposed by De Blainville and Colonel Smith 
into natural groups, which in most particulars agreed with the geo¬ 
graphical distribution of the species. 
Dr. Sundevall, in his Essay on Pecora, has availed himself of the 
suggestions in my paper, and has also pointed out some other exter¬ 
nal characters, such as the form and extent of the muffle, which afford 
good marks of distinction in these animals,—such as I believe are 
much more important for the distinction of the genera and species 
than those derived from the form of the skull or the modifications of 
the teeth, or the form and size of the horns; as they are not, like 
those parts, so liable to alteration from age, local circumstances and 
