In a letter I received from Mr. Colinson, in 1765, he informed me that
the Duke of Richmond had several of the species of the Ganges Stags,
or, as I have called it, Axis, in his park; that they lived familiarly
with the fallow-deer, did not form separate herds, but even propagated
together, and that from the intermixture beautiful varieties were
produced.
There was a male and female Chinese fallow-deer in the royal menagerie
in the year 1764; they were above two feet four inches in height; they
were dark brown on the body and tail, mixed in several places with
large yellow hairs, and yellow on the belly and legs. Though smaller
than either the fallow-deer or axis, it was probably only a variety of
the latter, and with whom it might intermix and be perpetuated even in
France, especially as they are both natives of the eastern regions of
Africa.[K]
[K] Sonnini observes, that the snout of the axis is shorter than
that of the stag, and his head is nearly as long as that of the
fallow-deer.
_Engraved for Barr's Buffon_
[Illustration: FIG. 145. _Zebu._]
[Illustration: FIG. 146. _Tapir._]