physiologists, as if it were an error of those at
whose opinions they have a right to sneer, the
poets. Why, the error was committed by
pretentious savants of former times, and the poets
have only been guilty of putting it into beautiful
and melodious words. It is all very well for the
naturalists to try to set up a system of flogging
a poet whenever a naturalist makes a mistake,
as George Buchanan was birched whenever King
Jamie was guilty of a blunder in his lessons.
As to the real functions of what are now called
"the sub-orbital sinuses," the physiologists
confess they know nothing in the present day.

The functions of the so-called tearpits are not
the only things respecting deer which puzzle
the students of animals, for nobody can classify
them. Horns, teeth, and fur, the muffle or
swelling on the upper lip, and the glands in the
hind legs, have all been used in arranging them
by eminent zoologists, but without scientific
success, for the last grouping published of them
divides them geographically, in despair of a
zoological arrangement, into the deer of the
snowy regions and the deer of warmer climes.
Fourteen species are mentioned in the list of
the Zoological Gardens; but the specimens there,
however fine some of the individuals may be,
cannot be said to represent adequately the forty
or fifty species described by different authors.
Besides the British red and fallow deer, there
are in the Gardens deer from North America,
Barbary, Persia, Himalaya, Formosa, India,
Molucca, and Mexico. Deer of snowy countries
have broad hairy muzzles, with flat or palmated
horns; and deer of warm countries have tapering
muzzles, with bald muffles. The three British
species are the fallow deer, red deer, and
roebuck. The fallow deer is the kind common in
parks. There are still a few red deer in out-
of-the-way places in Ireland, or, at least, there
were when the late Mr. Thompson drew up his
report on the fauna, and they are still pretty
numerous in Scotland, although they are every
year losing there more and more the character
of wild, and acquiring the characteristics of
preserved animals. The roebuck is unknown in
Ireland and rare in England, but still roams wild
in the far Highlands. English fallow deer are
of two varieties, the deep brown and the dappled,
the latter, it has been supposed, acclimated
from the south and the former from the north of
Europe. The red deer is larger than the fallow
deer, besides differing in the horns, and is of a
brown or dun-colour, with a pale spot upon the
rump. The roebuck has erect round horns, with
short reddish hair in summer, and long blackish
hair with yellow tips in winter.

But even if the zoologists had supplied
satisfactory marks for discriminating all the species
of deer, this would not be a proper place for
describing them, but some contrasted kinds
may be mentioned to enlarge our conception
of their differences. Size has much to do with
determining species, although the greatest
contrasts of size often exist among individuals of
identical species. The Corsican deer, for instance,
is a red deer dwarfed by hunger. General
Tom Thumb, who, if I remember rightly, is
twenty-six inches high, is identical in species
with Seng-woo-bah of Fychow, who, it is said,
can with ease look over a wall seven feet
and a half high. The conditions in which
successive generations grow up make the
most astonishing differences between individuals.
Yet size is a characteristic of species. For
each species there is a certain mean size to
which both great and small specimens naturally
revert. There are, therefore, it is beyond doubt,
startlingly large and startlingly small kinds of
deer, which have yet to be brought together in
contrast and exhibited to the wonder of Europe.

John Josselyn, gentleman, author of An
Account of Two Voyages to New England,
published in 1674, appears to have been severely
tried by the incredulity with which his description
of the size of the North American moose
or elk was received by his contemporaries.

"The moose or elke is a creature, or rather, if
you will, a monster of superfluity; a full grown
moose is many times bigger than an English
oxe, their horns, as I have said elsewhere, very
big (and brancht out into palms), the tips whereof
are sometimes found to be two fathom
asunder (a fathom is six feet from the tip of
one finger to the tip of the other, that is, four
cubits), and in height from the toe of the fore
feet to the pitch of the shoulder twelve foot,
both which hath been taken by some of my
sceptique readers to be monstrous lyes. If you
consider the breadth that the beast carrieth, and
the magnitude of the horns, you will easily be
induced to contribute your belief. And for
their height, since I came into England, I have
read Dr. Schrœderas, his chemical dispensatory,
translated into English by Dr. Rowland, where
he writes, 'that when he lived in Finland under
Gustavus Horn, he saw an elke that was killed
and presented to Gustavus his mother,
seventeen spans high. So you now, sirs, of the
gibing crue, if you have any skill in mensuration,
tell me what difference there is between
seventeen spans and twelve foot. There are
certain transcendentia in every creature, which
are the indelible characters of God, and
which discover God; there's a prudential for
you, as John Rhodes, the fisherman, used to
say to his mate Kitt Lux."

More than a hundred and fifty years after Mr.
Josselyn thus protested for verity, Mr. Catlin
came to London to make known the marvels of
North American Travel. And Mr. Catlin said
he once found at the foot of the Rocky Mountains
a pair of antlers, which he set up on their
points as an archway, and the tallest man of his
party walked under them without touching them.
If this confirmation should come under the
notice of a medium who would kindly make it
known to the ghost of Mr. Josselyn, it would no
doubt be received with much jubilation.

So much for large deer; and now it may be
mentioned that there are small deer not much
larger than English hares. The Brazilian Gouzuviva
is only twenty-six inches long, with brown
hair tipped with white on the back, and whitish