224 
1. Alces ; Alee, H. Smith. 
The muzzle is very broad, produced, and covered with hair, but 
there is a small, moist, naked spot in front of the nostrils; the neck 
is short and thick ; the hair is thick and brittle ; the throat is rather 
maned in both sexes ; the hind-legs have the tuft of hair rather above 
the middle of the metatarsus ; the males have palmate horns. The 
nose-cavity in the skull is very large, reaching behind to a line over 
the front of the grinders; the intermaxillaries are very long, but do 
not reach to the nasal; the nasals are very short. They live in woods 
in the northern parts of both continents. 
1. Alces malchis. The Elk or Moose. 
Dark brown ; legs yellow r er. 
Alces, Gesner; Plin.— Cervus Alces, Linn. S. N. i. 92; Pallas, 
Zool. R. A. i. 201 ; H. Smith ; Richardson, Fauna Bor. Amer. 232. 
—Alces Malchis, Ogilby, P. Z. S. 1836, 135 ; Gray, Knows. Menag. 
56.— Moose Deer, Dudley, Phil. Trans, n. 368. 165.— Elk, Laws, Ca¬ 
rol. 123; Pennant, Syn.— Elan, Brisson, H. N. xii. t. 7. Supp. vii. 
t. 25 ; Cuvier, R. A.— Oricjnal, La Houtan, Yoy. 72 ; Charlev. Nouv. 
France, iii. 126.— American Black Elk (0. alces /3.), H. Smith, G.A.K. 
v. 771.— Loss, Russians in Siberia. 
Inhabits the Northern regions of America and Europe. 
Several naturalists, especially Colonel Hamilton Smith, thought 
they had observed a difference in the horns of the Russian and Ame¬ 
rican Elks; I have compared numerous specimens from both coun¬ 
tries, but can discover no appreciable distinction between them. 
The Elks, like most of the other Deer, and especially of the ani¬ 
mals which inhabit the cold and mountain regions, present a very con¬ 
siderable difference in size, according to the scarcity or abundance of 
the food which the locality they inhabit affords, and the development 
of the horns appears to be greatly influenced by this cause; so that 
the horns of the animals inhabiting the more barren districts are much 
less developed than those found in more fertile situations, and I think 
I have observed this to be the case with both the Russian and the 
American horns: but on this head naturalists are like to be much 
misled, as the horns which are imported are generally chosen for their 
size and perfect development, and the small and less-developed speci¬ 
mens are only to be observed in the cargoes of horns which are im¬ 
ported for economic purposes. 
These observations are equally applicable to the Rein Deer. 
h . The Rangerine Deer or Reins have a large and well-deve¬ 
loped basal branch close on the crown of the horns. 
2. Tarandus ; Rangifer, IP. Smith. 
The muzzle is entirely covered with hair; the tear-bag small, 
covered with a pencil of hairs; the fur brittle, in summer short, in 
winter longer, whiter, of the throat longer; the hoofs are broad, de¬ 
pressed, and bent in at the tip ; the external metatarsal gland above 
