Père David's Deer.
This remarkable animal, which apparently bears little or no resemblance to any of the other deer of the Old World, has been placed by some naturalists between the roe deer and the American deer. Its habitat is North China, and, strangely enough, it seems to be unrecognised in the wild state, being apparently only known in China in the Imperial Park at Pekin. This deer approaches in size the red deer of Europe. The general colouring is greyish brown, white about the eyes, ears, rump, and under-parts; the horns, which lack the brow-tine, are very singular in shape, and measure as much as 32 inches in length; the tail is long, reaching to the hocks; the gait is "lolloping" and mule-like. This is a marsh-loving species, and at Woburn Abbey, where specimens are kept, "they may be seen wading far into the lakes and even swimming in the deeper water."
By permission of Professor Bumpus] [New York.
A MULE-DEER FAWN.
The large ears, from which the American species takes its name, are noticeable even in the young.
The American Deer.
Excepting always the elk, wapiti, and reindeer, which have been already described, the deer of North and South America stand quite apart from those of the Old World, and are placed in a genus of their own. Usually the tail is long, and the brow-tine is always wanting. The most familiar species is the common American Deer, of which the Virginian or White-tailed Deer is the type. This deer is found in varying forms in both continents, and was regularly hunted by the ancient Mexicans with trained pumas.
The well-known Virginian Deer, found in Eastern North America, and believed to range as far south as Louisiana, stands a trifle over 3 feet in height, and weighs, clean, about 12 stone 7 lbs. The coloration is chestnut in summer, bluish grey in winter. The antlers are of good size, and measure as much as 27½ inches in length. As a sporting animal the white-tailed deer is not popular. Mr. Clive Phillipps-Wolley describes him as "an exasperating little beast." possessing every quality which a deer ought not to, from the sportsman's point of view. "His haunts are river-bottoms, in choking, blinding bush, and his habits are beastly. No one could ever expect to stalk a white-tail; if you want to get one, you must crawl." Mr. Selous, in 1897, bagged one of these deer somewhat curiously. "He was coming," he writes, "through the scrubby, rather open bush straight towards me in a series of great leaps, rising, I think, quite four feet from the ground at every bound. I stood absolutely still, thinking to fire at him just as he jumped the stream and passed me. However, he came so straight to me that, had he held his course, he must have jumped on to or over me. But when little more than the width of the stream separated us—when he was certainly not more than ten yards from me—he either saw or winded me, and, without a moment's halt, made a prodigious leap sideways. I fired at him when he was in the air, and I believe quite six feet above the ground." The deer, an old buck with a good head, was afterwards picked up dead. In different parts of America, as far south as Peru and Bolivia, various local races of this deer are to be found.
True's Deer is a small species, not unlike the Virginian deer, found from South Mexico to Costa Rica. The antlers are "in the form of simple spikes directed backwards," and the body-colouring is in summer light chestnut, in winter brownish grey. Little is at present known of this species.