The Triumph of Peace and other Poems (1840); The Home Altar (1850); Jesus (1872), which ran through many editions and several revisions, the title being changed in 1880 to The Light of the Nations; Sermons (1885); The Gospel of Common Sense (1888); The Gospel of Spiritual Insight (1891) and My Septuagint (1892). The Charles F. Deems Lectureship in Philosophy was founded in his honour in 1895 at New York University by the American Institute of Christian Philosophy.
His Autobiography (New York, 1897) is autobiographical only to 1847, the memoir being completed by his two sons.
DEER (O. E. déor, díor, a common Teutonic word, meaning a
wild animal, cf. Ger. Tier, Du. dier, &c., probably from a root
dhus-, to breathe), originally the name of one of two British
species, the red-deer or the fallow-deer, but now extended to all
the members of the family Cervidae, in the section Pecora of the
suborder Artiodactyla of the order Ungulata. (See Pecora;
Artiodactyla and Ungulata.) Briefly, deer may be defined as
Pecora presenting the following characteristics:—either antlers
present in the male, or when these are absent, the upper canines
large and sabre-like, and the lateral metacarpal bones represented
only by their lower extremities. This definition will include the
living and also most of the extinct forms, although in some of
the latter the lateral metacarpal bones not only retain their lower
ends, but are complete in their entire length.
The leading characters of antlers are described under Pecora, but these structures may be defined somewhat more fully in the following passage from the present writer’s Deer of all Lands:—
“Antlers are supported on a pair of solid bony processes, or pedicles, arising from the frontal bones of the skull, of which they form an inseparable portion; and if in a fully adult deer these pedicles be sawn through, they will generally be found to consist of solid, ivory-like bone, devoid of perceptible channels for the passage of blood-vessels. The pedicles are always covered with skin well supplied with blood-vessels; and in young deer, or those in which the antlers have been comparatively recently shed, the covering of skin extends over their summits, when they appear as longer or shorter projections on the forehead, according to the species. When the first or a new antler is about to be formed, the summits of these pedicles become tender, and bear small velvet-like knobs, which have a high temperature, and are supplied by an extra quantity of blood, which commences to deposit bony matter. This deposition of bony matter progresses very rapidly, and although in young deer and the adults of some species the resulting antler merely forms a simple spike, or a single fork, in full-grown individuals of the majority it assumes a more or less complexly branched structure. All this time the growing antler is invested with a skin clothed with exceedingly fine short hairs, and is most liberally supplied with blood-vessels; this sensitive skin being called the velvet. Towards the completion of its growth a more or less prominent ring of bone, termed the burr or coronet, is deposited at its base just above the junction with the pedicle; this ring tending to constrict the blood-vessels, and thus cut off the supply of blood from the antlers....
“When the antlers are freed from the velvet—a process usually assisted by the animal rubbing them against tree stems or boughs—they have a more or less rugose surface, owing to the grooves formed in them by the nutrient blood-vessels. Although a few living species have the antlers in the form of simple spikes in the adult male, in the great majority of species they are more or less branched; while in some, like the elk and fallow-deer, they expand into broad palmated plates, with tines, or snags, on one or both margins. In the antlers of the red-deer group, which form the type of the whole series, the following names have been applied to their different component parts and branches. The main shaft is termed the beam; the first or lowest tine the brow-tine; the second the bez-tine; the third the trez-tine, or royal; and the branched portion forming the summit the crown, or surroyals. But the antlers of all deer by no means conform to this type; and in certain groups other names have to be adopted for the branches.
“The antlers of young deer are in the form of simple spikes; and this form is retained in the South American brockets, although the simple antlers of these deer appear due to degeneration, and are not primitive types. Indeed, no living deer shows such primitive spike-like antlers in the adult, and it is doubtful whether such a type is displayed by any known extinct form, although many have a simple fork. In the deer of the sambar group, where the antlers never advance beyond a three-tined type, the shedding is frequently, if not invariably, very irregular; but in the majority at least of the species with complex antlers the replacement is annual, the new appendages attaining their full development immediately before the pairing-season. In such species there is a more or less regular annual increase in the complexity of the antlers up to a certain period of life, after which they begin to degenerate.”
The Cervidae are distributed all over Europe, Asia, Northern Africa and America, but are unknown in Africa south of the Sahara. They are undoubtedly a group of European or Asiatic origin, and obtained an entrance into America at a time when that continent was connected with Asia by way of Bering Strait.
The existing members of the family are classified in the writer’s Deer of all Lands as follows:—
A. Subfamily Cervinae.—Antlers, with one exception, present in the male; liver without a gall-bladder; a face-gland, and a gland-pit in the skull.
I. Reindeer, Genus Rangifer.—Lateral metacarpal bones represented only by their lower extremities; antlers present in both sexes, complex. Northern part of both hemispheres.
II. Elk, Genus Alces.—Lateral metacarpals as in preceding; antlers (as in the following genera) present only in the male, arising at right angles to the median longitudinal line of the skull, and extending at first in the plane of the forehead, after which, when in their fullest development, they expand into a broad palmation margined with snags. Northern portion of both hemispheres.
III. True Deer, Genus Cervus.—Lateral metacarpals represented only by their upper ends. Antlers arising at acute angles to the median line of the skull (as in the following genera), at first projecting from the plane of the forehead, and then continued upwards nearly in that plane, supported on short pedicles, and furnished with a brow-tine, never regularly forked at first division, but generally of large size, and with not less than three tines; the skull without ridges on the frontals forming the bases of the pedicles of the antlers. Upper canine teeth small, or wanting. Europe, Asia and N. America.
1. Red-deer Group, Subgenus Cervus.—Antlers rounded, usually with five or more tines, generally including a bez (second), and always a trez (third); coat of adult generally unspotted, with a large light-coloured disk surrounding the tail; young, spotted. Europe, Northern and Central Asia and North America.
2. Sika Deer, Subgenus Pseudaxis.—Antlers smaller and simpler, four-tined, with a trez (third), but no bez (second); coat of adult spotted, at least in summer, with a white area bordered by black in the region of the tail, which is also black and white. North-Eastern Asia.
3. Fallow-deer, Subgenus Dama.—Antlers without a bez, but with a trez-tine, above which the beam is more or less palmated, and generally furnished with numerous snags; coat of adult spotted in summer, uniform in winter, with black and white markings in the region of the tail similar to those of Pseudaxis; young, spotted. Mediterranean region, but more widely spread in Europe during the Pleistocene epoch, and also introduced into many European countries.
4. Sambar Group, Subgenus Rusa.—Antlers rounded, three-tined, with the bez- and trez-tines wanting, and the beam simply forked at the summit; coat either uniform or spotted at all seasons. Indo-Malay countries and part of China.
5. Barasingha Group, Subgenus Rucervus.—Antlers flattened or rounded, without bez- or trez-tine, the beam dichotomously forking, and one or both branches again forked, so that the number of tines is at least four; brow-tine forming a right angle or a continuous curve with the beam; coat of adult generally more or less uniform, of young spotted. Indo-Malay countries.
IV. Muntjacs, Genus Cervulus.—Lateral metacarpals as in Cervus; antlers small, with a brow-tine and an unbranched beam, supported on long bony pedicles, continued downwards as convergent ridges on the forehead; upper canines of male large and tusk-like. Indo-Malay countries and China.
V. Tufted Muntjacs, Genus Elaphodus.—Nearly related to the last, but the antlers still smaller, with shorter pedicles and divergent frontal ridges; upper canines of male not everted at the tips. Tibet and China.
VI. Water-deer, Genus Hydrelaphus.—Lateral metacarpals as in Rangifer; antlers wanting; upper canines of males tusk-like and growing from semi-persistent pulps; cheek-teeth tall-crowned (hypsodont); tail moderate. China.
VII. Roe-deer, Genus Capreolus.—Lateral metacarpals as in Rangifer; antlers rather small, without a brow-tine or sub-basal snag, dichotomously forked, with the upper or posterior prong again forking; tail rudimentary; vomer not dividing posterior nasal aperture of skull. Europe and Northern Asia.
VIII. Père David’s Deer, Genus Elaphurus.—Lateral metacarpals as in Cervus; antlers large, without a brow-tine or sub-basal snag, dichotomously forked, with the upper prong of the fork curving forwards and dividing, and the lower prong long, simple, and projected backwards, the beam making a very marked angle with the plane of the face; tail very long; vomer as in Capreolus. North-East Asia.
IX. American Deer, Genus Mazama.—Lateral metacarpals as in Rangifer; antlers very variable in size, forming a marked angle with the plane of the face, without a brow-tine; when consisting of more than a simple prong, dichotomously forked, frequently with a sub-basal snag, and always with the lower prong of the fork projected from the front edge of the beam, in some cases the lower, in others
