The Muntjacs, Cervulus, form a distinct generic type confined to the Indian and the South-Eastern Palaearctic region. They are small Deer with spotted young, and short one-branched antlers placed upon pedicels as long as themselves. The canines are strongly developed in the males. There are about half-a-dozen species.
Cariacus is exclusively American in range, and contains about twenty species. There are or are not upper canines. The young
are spotted. The antlers are occasionally very simple; in C. rufus and a few allies (placed in a special sub-genus Coassus) they are simple spikes without branches. In this genus, and in the nearly allied and also New-World Pudua, the vomer is prolonged backwards and divides the posterior nares into two. The bulk of the species are South American.
Fig. 154.—Chilian Deer. Cariacus chilensis. × 1⁄12. (From Nature.)
Pudua, just mentioned, comes from the Chilian Andes. It is a small Deer without canines and with minute antlers. Other generic names have been proposed for various species of American deer.
Hydropotes inermis is a small perfectly hornless Deer, living on the islands of the Yang-tse-kiang. The male has tusks; the young are spotted. Though, like other deer, Hydropotes has no gall-bladder, both Mr. Garrod[[193]] and Mr. Forbes[[194]] found the
rudiments of one in the shape of a white ligamentous cord. Mr. Forbes has especially dwelt upon the likeness of the brain to that of Capreolus. The female has four teats, and produces three to six young at a time.
Fig. 155.—Water Deer. Hydropotes inermis. × 1⁄10. (From Nature.)