_Cariacus_ is exclusively American in range, and contains about twenty species. There are or are not upper canines. The young {296} are spotted. The antlers are occasionally very simple; in _C. rufus_ and a few allies (placed in a special sub-genus _Coassus_) they are simple spikes without branches. In this genus, and in the nearly allied and also New-World _Pudua_, the vomer is prolonged backwards and divides the posterior nares into two. The bulk of the species are South American. [Illustration] FIG. 154.--Chilian Deer. _Cariacus chilensis._ x 1/12. (From _Nature_.) _Pudua_, just mentioned, comes from the Chilian Andes. It is a small Deer without canines and with minute antlers. Other generic names have been proposed for various species of American deer. _Hydropotes inermis_ is a small perfectly hornless Deer, living on the islands of the Yang-tse-kiang. The male has tusks; the young are spotted. Though, like other deer, _Hydropotes_ has no gall-bladder, both Mr. Garrod[201] and Mr. Forbes[202] found the {297} rudiments of one in the shape of a white ligamentous cord. Mr. Forbes has especially dwelt upon the likeness of the brain to that of _Capreolus_. The female has four teats, and produces three to six young at a time. [Illustration] FIG. 155.--Water Deer. _Hydropotes inermis._ x 1/10. (From _Nature_.) _Alces machlis_, the Elk or Moose, is a circumpolar species with palmated antlers and is of large size. The young are unspotted. This animal is the largest of the Deer tribe. The aspect of this creature is by no means that of a Deer, the long, thick, and rather prehensile upper lip not by any means suggesting the family to which it belongs; the legs, too, are ungainly through their unusual length. The Moose has a curious method of protecting himself from Wolves. Instead of moving about during heavy snowstorms, and being thus on the heavy ground an easy prey for these agile enemies, the animal forms what is known as a "Moose yard." An area of ground is kept well {298} trampled down, and the animal contents itself with browsing upon the adjacent stems. The well-trampled ground gives an easy footing, and by his powerful horns the great stag is able to keep his enemies at bay. [Illustration] FIG. 156.--Moose. _Alces machlis._ x 1/20. _Rangifer tarandus_, the Reindeer, is unique among Deer by reason of the fact that both sexes wear antlers. These antlers are palmated. The brow tine and the next or bez tine are also palmated and are directed forwards and a little downwards. The young are unspotted. The pelage alters in winter. Like the Moose, the Reindeer is circumpolar. As is well known, during the Pleistocene period the Reindeer extended its range as far as the South of France. Even in the historic period it is said to have been hunted in Caithness.