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Show 54 SIR V. BROOKE ON THE DEER OF THE PHILIPPINES. [Feb. 6, and Gaimard, the naturalists of the expedition (Zool. Voy. de l'Uranie, p, 33, 1824), to have existed in immense numbers on Guam, the largest of the Marianne Islands. They thus write respecting this animal :- " Une petite espece de cerf axis, qui a ete apporte'e des Philippines, a tenement multiplie, que Ton ne connoit pas de lieu qui en contienne proportionnellement davantage ; car il existe a Guam plus de mille de ces auimaux. On nourrit de leur chair les equipages des navires qui touchent a cette ile, et le notre n'eut presque pas d'autres vivres pendant le temps que nous y demeurames. . . . Le faon est fauve, et n'a point de taches comme celui d'Europe, a quelque age qu'on le prenne." They describe the island of Guam thus : - " Cette ile n'a que quarante lieues de tour. Son sol est eleve, montueux, en partie volcanique et en partie forme de calcaire madreporique. Les montagnes, qui ont toutes suivi Taction de feu, sont arides et peu boisees. . . . . Cet archipel n'a qu'un mammifere qui ne lui ait pas ete apporte." 1820. In his * Mammalogie' (p. 436), Desmarest confers the name Cervus mariannus upon the species observed by Quoy and Gaimard in the island of Guam. In his short notice Desmarest only mentions two specimens, a stuffed male and a fawn. 1821-24. In the second edition of his ' Ossemens Fossiles ' (p. 45), Cuvier mentions^ in addition to the types of Desmarest's description, the skull of a male, also brought from Guam by Quoy and Gaimard. Cuvier says that he was " presque tente de rapporter a cette espece, a cause de la forme tres-semblable du crane, un individu jeune rap-porte de Manille par M . Dussumier" (== the specimen upon which Hamilton Smith subsequently established his species Cervus philippinus). The absence of canines in the specimens from the Mariannes, and their presence in the Philippine specimen, induced Cuvier, however, to suspend his judgment in the matter. He particularly remarks with regard to the skull obtained by Quoy and Gaimard, " le frontal est releve longitudinalement entre les cornes, et a en avant des orbites, vers la base du nez, deux convexites longitudinales fort remarquables." 1827- Hamilton Smith in Griffith's 'Animal Kingdom' figures the stuffed male above mentioned, and describes it and the fawn, retaining for them Desmarest's name Cervus mariannus. Observations. In the Musee d'Histoire Naturelle at Paris there is still preserved the fawn (414 A in Cat.) which formed one of the types of Desmarest's original description. The adult male, which all authors describe as having been in an exceedingly bad state of preservation, is no longer contained in this museum ; but in the Musee d'Anatomie I have observed a skull which I believe to have belonged to this specimen (No. 1345 in Cat.). The close resemblance of the horns in this specimen to Hamilton Smith's plate, and the occipital bones |