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Show 572 MR. R. SWINHOE ON CHINESE DEER. [June 1 7, teresting discovery, which adds a new and remarkable form to family of the Papilionidae. Other specimens have since been taken at Buxa by Lieut. H. M. Rose, of the Bengal Staff Corps. 5. O n Chinese Deer, with the Description of an apparently new Species. By R O B E R T S W I N H O E , F.Z.S., H.B.M. Consul at Chefoo. [Received June 4, 1873.] During my two months' residence in Shanghai I have been paying particular attention to Deer; and I now hasten to communicate to you my notes, to be read before the Society, while they are still fresh in my mind and not obliterated by the confusion of packing and moving to my next post at Chefoo, the north-eastern point of the province of Shantung. Hydropotes inermis has been extremely abundant this winter, ranging within a few scores of miles of Shanghai; and shooting-parties have brought back as many as thirty at a time. The market, the whole season through, has been perfectly glutted with them ; and numbers rot for want of consumers. Four and sixpence each was the price they fell to. They hide in marshy ground, and are usually started singly; but a gentleman here tells me that he put up a herd of twenty on one occasion, in the great marsh beyond the Hangchow-Bay sea-wall, near Fung Hien city, the ground whence the Shanghai market gets most of its supply of wild game. Another sporting friend confirmed the numerous progeny at a birth, and said that twice this winter he had found seven young ones in females that had been opened. I had some females opened in the market; but they were childless. An embryo procured at Chinkiang was placed in spirits and given to me; and I have lately forwarded it to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. In the adult male carcasses that I have examined I have always found the canines loose, moving readily backwards and forwards and from side to side. The undeveloped canines were, on the contrary, firmly fixed; they had also the appearance of having been whetted to an edge on their inner line. I never had the opportunity of watching a live adult male, but, from the fact of these teeth being loose, imagine it possible that the animal might have muscular power over them. This I communicated to Prof. Busk, enclosing the fully developed tusks of a specimen known to have been three years old when it died. Prof. Busk scouted the idea of muscularity ; and I determined to have the point settled here. To this end I asked the assistance of two of the leading surgeons at Shanghai. I sent a fresh adult skull to Dr. L. H. Little, and took two to the study of Dr. R. A. Jamieson, who had kindly agreed to dissect and examine them in my company. He cut open the socket and took out the tooth. The tissue round the |