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Show 1875.] MR. W. T. BLANFORD ON A NEW STAG. 639 point it gives out an anterior tine, which is much the longest of all, being only a little shorter than the upper part of the beam itself. Above this the beam gives out two other tines, successively diminishing in size, the last about equal to the terminal snag; and all these four upper points, with the beam itself, are distinctly compressed, so as to be subpalmate; and all four are iu nearly tbe same plane, so that by looking at the horn with either the beam or the great fourth tine in front, the remainder of the crown can be completely concealed. The nearest approach in form to these horns with which I am acquainted may perhaps be found in a pair figured by Severtzoff in his ' Turkestanskie Jevotnie,' p. 105, under the name of Cervus maral. The number of tines is similar; and there is some resemblance in their form and in the manner in which the beam curves backwards above the royal. These horns also, I believe, came from the Thian- Shan mountains, and they may perhaps belong to the same species. But in Severtzoff's figure the brow and bez antlers are much further apart, the beam appears less curved inwards above the royals, and the tendency to palmation in the crown is wanting, whilst the fourth tine scarcely exceeds the two next in size. The horns now figured differ widely from those of Cervus maral represented in the ' Transactions of tbe Zoological Society,' vol. vii. p. 336, pl. xxix. The curve of the beam in the former is greater, the brow and bez antlers closer together and different in proportion and direction ; and the crown is very dissimilar. On comparing the Thian-Shan horns with those of Cervus cash-mirianus and C. affinis, even greater differences will be noticed. The horns now described are smoother ; the brow and bez antlers are closer together; the beam is bent backward towards the tip, which is not the case in the species from Kashmir and Eastern Tibet; and the form of the crown is utterly different. In C. affinis there are said never to be more than two, and in C. cashmirianus, as a rule, certainly not above three points above the royal, and there is not the slightest tendency to palmation. Whatever Mr. Hodgson's Cervus narayanus* (founded upon a single immature horn) may be, it is evidently something very different from the Thian-Shan species, its chief peculiarity being the great distance apart of the two basal tines. It appears to me that the horns of the Thian-Shan stag approach those of the Wapiti more than they do those of any Asiatic deer. The general resemblance between the Asiatic stags and Cervus canadensis in the form of the antlers has been discussed by many naturalists, and by none more fully than by Mi*. Blyth f, who has pointed out that the most important characters in which the horns of the American stag differ from those of the animals found in Eastern Tibet, Kashmir, and Persia are the smoothness of the former, their tendency to flattening or palmation in the crown, their greater subdivision in the upper portion, and the marked backward curvature and want of convergence in the upper part of the beam. Now in all * J. A. S. B. 1851, vol. xx. p. 392, pl. viii. t J. A. S. B. 1853, vol. xxii. p. 592; 1861, vol. xxx. p. 185, &c. PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1875, No. XLI. 41 |
