or DEER, in zoology, a genus of quadrupeds belonging to the order of pecora. The horns are solid, brittle, covered with a hairy skin, and growing from the top; they likewise fall off, and are renewed annually. There are eight fore-teeth in the under jaw, and they have no dog-teeth. The species of this genus are seven, viz. 1. The camelopardalis, with simple or unbranched horns, and the fore-feet remarkably longer than the hind feet. This is an uncommon animal, few of them having ever been seen in Europe. It is a native of Ethiopia, and is very mild and gentle: The head is like that of a stag; its horns are blunt and about six inches long. The neck resembles that of a camel, but much longer, being sometimes seven feet in length. The body is small, covered with white hair, and spotted with red. He is eighteen feet in length from the tail to the top of the head; and when he holds up his head, it is fifteen feet from the ground. He feeds principally on the leaves of trees.
2. The alces, or elk, has palmated horns, without any proper stem, and a fleshy protuberance on the throat. This is the largest animal of the deer kind. At the fair of St German, at Paris, in the year 1752, a female elk was exhibited as a show. It was caught in the year 1749, in a forest of Red Russia, belonging to a Khan of Tartary. The height was six feet seven inches, the length ten feet, and the thickness eight. The hair was long, like that of a wild boar. The skin is said to resist the force of a gun bullet. The elk is a very swift animal; and he feeds upon leaves of alder, birch, willow, &c. When tamed, he devours large quantities of hay or bread. This animal is found in the northern woods of Europe, Asia, and America. 3. The elaphus, is a kind of elk, with cylindrical ramified horns, bent backwards. It is a native of the northern parts of Europe and Asia.
4. The tarandus, or rein-deer, is a native of Lapland, and the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America. The horns are large, cylindrical, branched, and palmated at the tops. Two of the branches hang over the face. He is about the size of a buck, of a dirty whitish colour; the hairs of his skin are thick and strong. These animals are of great use to the Laplanders; they feed upon their flesh; they employ their fines in sewing the boards of fedges together, and their milk affords them good cheese: They likewise make garments of their skins. The rein-deer are always employed in drawing fedges along the snowy mountains, where horses cannot travel. In a beaten track, they will drag a fedge twenty-five miles a day. When the animal is tired, his matter looses him from the fedge, and he immediately scrapes the snow from the ground with his feet, and feeds upon a species of liver-wort, called rein-deer liver-wort, which is very plentiful in these countries. This is the only nourishment they require.
5. The dama, or buck and doe, a well known animal, kept tame in parks; the horns are branched, compressed, and palmated at the top. It is a native of Europe. Their flesh, which goes by the name of venison, is in high repute with the luxurious. See Plate LXIII.
6. The capreolus, has erect, cylindrical, branched horns, and forked at the top. It is called by some authors the Brazilian goat, and is a native of Europe and Asia.
7. The Guineenbos, is of a greyish colour, and black underneath. It is a native of Guinea; and the size and figure of its horns have not been hitherto described with any precision.
Cervus volans, in zoology, a synonyme of a species of lucanus. See Lucanus.