My dear Sir,

Your note of Aug. 4^th. has remained a long while unanswered, and my correspondence generally was getting inconscniently into arrears, which I am now fast getting down.¹ The crested race of turkey, as you will have seen, has been described before the biological section of the British Association.² I would have gone to Norwich, but have not been particularly well of late, and there is more of feasting than I like on all occasions of the kind.

Now for your suggestion about the development of horn in antelopes.³ A very striking instance of what you suspect is afforded by the young Koodoo and the young elands in the Zoological Gardens. In the former the female sex is hornless, in the latter horned. Now in the young male eland of about three months old the horns are very much more developed than in the young Koodoo which is probably at least ten months old!⁴ Indeed, considering the size to which they ultimately attain in the Koodoo, I think that the backward state of them in the young Koodoo in question is very remarkable.

At the same time I can think of no other good instance of the kind. In the gazelline series the true gazelles have mostly small horns in the female sex, but not in Gazella subgutturosa, Procapra gutturosa & P. picticaudata, Cervicapra bezoartica, the African pallah, & again the Saiga & the Tchiru.⁵ In all the forms allied to the Koodoo the females are hornless, with the exception of the two good species of eland; and of the latter the common one has narrow and pointed ears, like the humped cattle, while the great Oreas Derbianus ⁶ has broad ears as in the Koodoos. I think I have before called your attention to the very great diversity of size in the common red Deer (C. elaphus), according to the locality, e.g. the great Carpathian race, with horns attaining to 4 ft. long, the ordinary race of Western Europe, the horns of which very rarely exceed 3 ft., & the diminutive race of the island of Harris (& probably other islands) in the Hebrides, wherein 2 ft. is about the average length of a fully developed horn, with all the tines & crown complete.⁷ Something very like this is exhibited by Cervus mantchuricus of N. China, the very diminutive C. sika of Japan, and the intermediate C. pseudaxis of Formosa. The three animals are of the same peculiar type, but the large mantchuricus has a considerable nuchal ruff in winter, which is not seen in the others.⁸ By the way, the subfossil race of the British islands, Switzerland, &c. resembles the existing great Carpathian race. In the Sâmur (C. hippelaphus) there is considerable local variation, especially as shewn by the development & variation of form of the horns, but I consider the animal to be the same all over India (with Ceylon) & the Indo-Chinese countries, becoming darker-coloured in Malacca, Sumatra, & especially Borneo, where styled C. equinus, but an extreme variation only of C. hippelaphus in my opinion; while forms of sâmur, but much more diminutive, exist in C. Swinhoei of Formosa & C. philippinus of the Philippines.⁹ C. rusa of Java is quite distinct, & close to this but successively smaller are C. moluccensis of Celebes, &c, & C. timoriensis.¹⁰ C. rusa, however, has again the nuchal ruff, which its two proximate congeners have not. Now the horns of C. elaphus from different parks or forests in this island are very commonly distinguishable, as most Deer-stalkers know, & of equivalent importance are certain of the local variations of sâmur horns. I do not acknowledge a C. Aristotelis as distinct from C. hippelaphus,¹¹ and hesitate not a little about recognising C. equinus. C. barbarus ¹² of North Africa I consider to be a good species, & the Corsican (if not also the Sardinian) stag¹³ is either the same or comes very near it. I have examined several dozens of horns of C. barbarus, and never yet found the bez-antler or second basal tine,—the horn being akin to that of C. dama,¹⁴ which is still wild on the mainland of Greece.

The accompanying sketch represents the horn of C. barbarus, & the dotted lines convert it into that of C. dama. Now about other true stags, of the elaphine type. The most distinct are the American wapiti (C. canadensis)¹⁵ & the Mongolian shou (C. Hardwickii), which last is the C. affinis, Hodgson.¹⁶ Then we have two well marked races in the Z.G., viz. C. maral of Persia & Asia Minor, and C. Kashmiriensis,¹⁷ both of which are more distinct from C. elaphus than are the Carpathian and other races of the latter from each other. And it is probable that a large stag in the north of Japan that has been referred to C. elaphus will prove to be as different from it as are the Kashmirian and Persian stags— There is now a true wild Greek example of C. dama in the Z.G., remarkable for the shortness of its limbs, and the horns which it has put forth this season are remarkably like those of a wild Greek specimen of which I have photographs, while they would not be easy to match among those of English park deer. Perhaps some of the foregoing facts may be of some service to you—

Yours very Sincerely, | E. Blyth.