[I] I never saw, at Senegal, any stag with horns like those in France. Voyage de le Maire.—There are stags in the peninsula of India, on this side the Ganges, whose bodies are interspersed with white spots. Voyage de la Compagnie des Indes de Hollande.—There are stags at Bengal spotted like tigers. Voyage de Luillier.
The gentlemen of the Academy of Sciences have given the figure and description of the interior parts of this animal, but say very little of his exterior form, and nothing with respect to his history. They have only called him the Sardinian hind, because, probably, they received that name from the royal menagerie, where there is one of them; but there is no proof of this animal’s being a native of Sardinia. No author has mentioned that he exists in that island, as a wild animal; but on the contrary, we see by the passages we have quoted, that he is found in the warmest countries of Asia. Thus the denomination of Sardinian hind, has been falsely applied; that of the Ganges stag agrees best, if he really were of the same species as the stag, since that part of India, which the Ganges waters, appears to be his native country. He is also to be met with in Barbary, and, it is probable, that the spotted fallow-deer of the Cape of Good Hope, is the same animal.
We have already remarked, that no species approaches so near each other, as that of the fallow-deer to the stag: nevertheless, the axis appears to be an intermediate shade between the two. He resembles the fallow-deer in the size of his body, length of his tail, and his coat, which is the same during his whole life: the only essential difference is in his horns, which nearly resemble those of the stag. The axis, therefore, may be only a variety depending on the climate, and not a different species from that of the fallow-deer; for, although he is a native of the warmest countries of Asia, he exists and multiplies easily in Europe. There are many herds of them in the royal menagerie; and they produce together as freely as the fallow-deer. It has never, however, been observed, that they mix either with the fallow-deer, or with the stags, and this is the cause of our presuming, that they are not a variety of one or the other, but a particular and intermediate species. But as no direct and decisive experiments on this subject have yet been made, and as no necessary means has been used to oblige these animals to unite, we will not positively affirm that they are two different species.
We have already seen, under the articles of stag and fallow-deer, how many instances these animals give of varieties, especially in the colour of their hair. The species of the fallow-deer and stag, without being very numerous in individuals, is universally diffused; both are met with in either continent, and both are subject to a great number of varieties, which appear to form lasting kinds. The white stags, which are a very ancient race, since the Greeks and Romans mention them, and the small brown stags, which we have called Corsican stags, are not the only varieties of this species. There is in Germany another race, known in that country by the name of Brandhertz, and by our hunters by that of the Stag of Ardennes. This stag is larger than a common stag, and differs from other stags not only by its deeper colour, being almost black, but also by long hair upon the shoulders and on the throat. This kind of mane and beard give him some affinity, the first to the horse, and the latter to the goat. The ancients have given to this stag the compound names of Hippelaphus and Tragelaphus. As these denominations have occasioned critical discussions, in which the most learned naturalists are not agreed, and as Gesner, Caius, and others, have said, that the hippelaphus was the rein-deer, we shall here give the reasons which have occasioned us to think differently, and have led us to suppose that the hippelaphus of Aristotle is the same animal as the tragelaphus of Pliny, and that both these names equally denote the stag of Ardennes.
Aristotle gives to his hippelaphus a kind of mane upon the neck and upon the upper part of the shoulders, a beard under the throat, horns to the male resembling those of the roe-bucks, and no horns to the female. He says, that the hippelaphus is of the size of a stag, and is found among the Arachotas, a people of India, where wild oxen are also to be met with, whose bodies are robust, their skins black, their muzzles raised, and their horns bent more backwards than those of the domestic oxen. It must be acknowledged, that Aristotle’s characters of the hippelaphus, agree nearly with those of the rein-deer and the stag of Ardennes; they both have long hair upon the neck and shoulders, and also on the throat, which forms a kind of beard on the gullet, and not on the chin; but the hippelaphus, being only of the size of the stag, differs in that from the rein-deer, who is much larger: and what appears to me decisive on the question is, that the rein-deer being an animal belonging to cold countries, never existed among the Arachotas. The country of the Arachotas is one of the provinces which Alexander travelled over in his expedition into India; it is situated beyond Mount Caucasus, between Persia and India. This hot climate never produced any rein-deer, as they cannot exist even in temperate countries, and are only to be met with in the northern regions of both continents. Stags, on the contrary, are not particularly attached to the north, but are to be found in great numbers in warm and temperate climates. Thus we cannot doubt but the hippelaphus of Aristotle, which is met with among the Arachotas, and in the same countries with the buffalo, is the stag of Ardennes, and not the rein-deer.
If we now compare what Pliny says upon the tragelaphus with what Aristotle says upon the hippelaphus, and both with Nature, we shall find, that the tragelaphus is the same animal as the hippelaphus, and therefore the same as our stag of Ardennes. Pliny says, that the tragelaphus is of the stag species,[J] and only differs from him by the beard and the hair on his shoulders. These characters are positive, and can only be applied to the stag of Ardennes; for Pliny speaks elsewhere of the rein-deer under the name of Alcé. We think ourselves, therefore, sufficiently warranted to pronounce, that the tragelaphus of Pliny, and the hippelapus of Aristotle, both denote the animal we call the Stag of Ardennes; and that the axis of Pliny is the animal commonly called the Ganges Stag. Though names have no influence on Nature, yet an explication of them is doing service to those who study her productions.
[J] Eadem est specie (cervi videlicet) barbâ tantum; et armorum villo distans quem tragelaphon vocant non alibi quam juxta Phasius amnem nascens. Pliny. Hist. Lib. viii. c. 33.
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