Musk-deer

Musk-deer (Moschus moschiferus) is a ruminant Ungulate forming a special family of the Artiodactyla. According to Flower, it represents an ancestral type of the Pecora (Bovidae, Cervidae, Giraffidae), but with nearest affinities to the Deer (Cervidae). As in the Cervidae, the young is spotted, but it has no horns, and the canine teeth of the male project in the form of longish tusks; this latter fact has led to the association of Moschus with the Tragulidae (Chevrotains, q.v.), which is, however, not justified by its other characters. The musk-deer is an inhabitant of the mountainous regions of central Asia from the extreme north to as far south as Cochin-China and Nepal. There is only one species, with perhaps four well-marked varieties. The musk-deer is much hunted on account of the odoriferous secretion which is found in a special gland upon the hinder-part of the abdomen of the males. This substance was first introduced into the west by the Arabs. It is spoken of in the pharmacologies of Serapion and Avicenna and by the traveller Marco Polo. The value of the substance used to be very great, as it figures among the costly objects presented by Saladin to the Greek emperor in 1189. It was used in the embalming of bodies as early as the 14th century. For an interesting account of the musk-deer (and the Chevrotains), see Milne-Edwards, Annales des Sciences Naturelles (1864); and for the anatomy, Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1875.