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Show 1873.] MR. R. SWINHOE ON CHINESE DEER. 573 fang was submitted to the microscope; and no muscular fibre could be detected. The gum round the tooth was then examined, but with similar result; the gum was no other than ordinary. The movement of the tooth moves the surrounding gum, which firmly clasps it; but neither the gums nor the lips have any power to move the teeth. The angle subtended by the movement backward and forward of each tooth we guessed to be between 10° and 15°. Dr. Little had not had time to examine his specimen, but suggested that the action in the tooth might be guided by erectile tissue, which would be more developed at the rutting-season, and give a firmer hold to the tooth when required for fighting-purposes. I conferred with Dr. Jamieson on this suggestion; and he writes, " I am quite sure that in the section we placed under the microscope the other day we saw nothing answering to the dense network of capillaries, and to the plexus of epithelium-lined trabeculae divided by muscular fasciculi, which go to make up an erectile tissue ? When is the rutting-time ? If the movable tusks are secondary sexual characteristics, we ought then to find the vessels in a more developed state, and more favourable for examination." But these Deer are only procurable in winter, and the rutting-time is not then ; so the question cannot just now be satisfactorily settled. The tooth pushes forward in its growth, and the cavity left behind the fang closes after it, as will be seen in the woodcuts given in Sir Victor Brooke's paper on Hydropotes (P.Z.S. 1872, p. 522), until the end of the third year,when the animal is full-grown and the tooth fully developed; it is then, and only then, found to show the loose character above referred to. I was pleased to find an adult male in an aviary belonging to a gentleman here. He had had the animal many years, and refused to sell it. This creature I found, to m y surprise, carried its tusks lying back against the long tuft of hair on each side of its under jaw. Mr. Vrard declared that the tusks had always been in that position, and that he had never seen the animal move them. In death they certainly are always vertical; and I suspect this animal must have had an accident which forced them into their present position. It seemed very tame, and allowed the birds to perch on its back without being disturbed. I watched in vain to see it move its tusks; and it was not easy to get hold of it for the purpose of handling them. The Hydropotes, I note, has no glandular patch on the tarsus. A specimen of its skull (adult male) that I possess has an extra first premolar on each side of the upper jaw; that on the right side is situated inwards alongside of the normal tooth; that on the left is wedged angularly between the first and second premolars. I will now pass on to describe a very fine new species of Deer which I have lately acquired from the neighbouring country, and which in size will vie with most of the known species. The antlered Deer of the mountains south of the Yangtse. In writing on Deer from Ningpo (see P. Z. S. 1872, p. 815) I mentioned to you that a Chinese hunter from the Fychow |