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Show 646 MR. R. SWINHOE ON CHINESE MAMMALS. [June 23, variation in the colour of the hair. Three years after birth the Deer commences to horn. At the end of the year the horns drop away as do the milk-teeth of infants. Other horns appear in their place, which are retained throughout the animal's lifetime ; but every year an extra fork is added. " The teats appear in the doe at the age of four months. Just before they show she gets extremely fat. When big with young, her skin is soft, smooth, spotted, glossy, and very lovely. As soon as the doe has finished suckling and observes her fawn getting to maturity, she deserts it and repairs to other hills, fearing that her own issue might entertain an improper affection for herself. Animals do not confuse the ties of consanguinity, the horse excepted. The stallion, however, when he does commit incest with his mother, soon after dies. The doe deprives her offspring of the opportunity by setting a distance between herself and fawn ; for she deserts it and betakes herself afar." I have lately examined the type specimens in the Paris Museum of Cervus pseudaxis, and I am convinced that they belong to the Formosan species. 76. CERVUS (RUSA) SWINHOII. (Swinhoe's Deer.) Cervus (Rusa) swinhoii, Sclater, P.Z.S. 1862, p. 152, pl. xvii.; Swinhoe, P.Z. S. 1862, p. 364. In the central ranges of Formosa near Mount Morrison this brown deer is very common ; and on a visit I paid to the wild tribes of these parts in February 1866 I found them hunting the Deer with dogs*. A place is cleared in the forest, where a party of men hide armed with matchlocks; the dogs yelp after the deer and drive them into the open, where the hidden sportsmen get easy shots at them. The son of the chief with whom I was staying had just returned from a successful battue with the robust antlers and flesh of a large buck. I induced him to return for the head, which he had thrown away on the field. I was thus enabled to secure a fine skull for the British Museum. The young of this species about half-grown is reddish brown, with the tail bushy and black, but reddish at its root. Sides of the body paler, and the belly blackish brown. Legs pale towards the hoofs ; the latter black. Under surface of tail, abdomen, and inner sides of hind legs down to middle of shank yellowish white, the breast and belly being blackish brown. Under surface of head and neck mottled whitey brown. Crown of the head with many of the hairs tipped with black ; from the occiput a dark line runs down to the base of the tail. Ears blackish brown, tipped and margined with ochreous white, and whitish on their insides. The adult, in summer, has its coarse hair deep brown, faintly mottled, rufous on the rump ; between the fore legs and the thighs ochreous white ; tail bushy and dark. In winter it becomes a deeper brown. The Society's Gaidens have had two or three examples of * The Dogs in the possession of these aborigines were of the ordinary Chinese breed procured from the colonists. |