Guide to the great fame animals (Ungulata) in the Department of Zoology, British Museum (Natural History) : Illustrated by 53 text and other figures.

  • British Museum (Natural History). Department of Zoology.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Guide to the great fame animals (Ungulata) in the Department of Zoology, British Museum (Natural History) : Illustrated by 53 text and other figures. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Deer and Chinese Water-Deer; while in all cases the lower canines have simple crowns (fig. 38), and are thus unlike those of the Giraffida. Deer are mostly forest animals, and are distributed over all the world (exclusive of Australasia), with the remarkable exception of Africa south of the tropic of Cancer and Madagascar. The Reindeer, The Reindeer, or Caribou, Rangifer tarandus or Caribou. (1280), inclusive of its many local phases, forms a Genus Ranyifer. genus by itself, readily distinguished from all other Deer by the peculiar form of the antlers (fig. 40), and their presence in both sexes. Frequently—and more especially in American examples—one brow-tine of the antlers is much more developed than the other. In the feet the lateral pair of hoofs is unusually large, and the cleft between the main pair very deep; thus allowing the hoofs to spread out widely, and so to afford a firmer support on the yielding snow. In Scandinavia the Reindeer has long been domesticated; and not only serves the natives as a beast of burden and draught, but likewise supplies them with clothing, milk, and meat. Harnessed to a sleigh, it will draw a load of 300 lbs. a distance of 100 miles per day over the frozen snow. In summer the chief food of the Lapland Reindeer consists of a peculiar kind of moss and certain lichens which the animals search for by scraping away the snow with their feet. The wild Reindeer is a considerably larger animal than the domesticated breed. Young Reindeer are not spotted. The Scandinavian, or typical, Reindeer is represented by a male and female presented by Sir William and Mr. C. Ingram, and by a male of Osborn's Caribou (R. tarandus osborni) from the Yukon, and of the Newfoundland R. t. terra-nova presented by Mr. F. C. Selous, as well as by other specimens. The Elk I*1 addition to being the largest of living Deer, Elk, or Moose. or Moose, Alces machlis, or A. alces (1281), are GeilUS Alces. distinguished from other members of the Cervida by the form of the antlers of the males (fig. 41). These arise as cylin- drical beams projecting on each side at right angles to the middle line of the skull, which after a short distance divide in a fork-like manner. The lower prong of this fork may be either simple, or divided into two or three tines, with some flattening. In the East Siberian A. m. bedfordia (1262), as well as in some Scandinavian Elk, the posterior division of the main fork divides into three tines, e 2 f Lower Mammal Gallery. Cases B & 58.] [Cases A & 60.]
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