Abstract
NATURAL History shares with History the doubtful honour of having not a few chapters which are, to use a well-known expression of Talleyrand, nothing more than “des fables convenues,”or which, in fact, contain generally accepted fabrications. To this shadowy side of science Geology gives the largest contributions, but Zoology, especially as regards the habits, habitats, and geographical distribution of animals, is by no means poor in them. Of the Fallow Deer (Cervus dama) it is generally stated in all zoological text-books, “It is a native of the Mediterranean area, and was introduced thence into Germany, Scandinavia, and England, after the Crusades.” And yet the Fallow Deer was, many thousand years ago, not only an inhabitant of Africa and Western Asia, but also as much at home in Southern Russia, and even in Central Europe and Denmark, as in Italy and Southern France.
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ON THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE FALLOW DEER IN PRESENT AND IN PAST TIME * . Nature 11, 71–74 (1874). https://doi.org/10.1038/011071a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/011071a0