Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/33

Rh que Nucleus quidam, London, 1573. The catalogue of his printed and published works is to be found in his Compendious Rehearsal, &3 well as in his letter to Archbishop &quot;VVhitgift, to which tho reader is referred. A manuscript of Dee s, relating what passed for many years between him and some spirits, was edited by Meric Cas- aubon and published in 1659. The Private Diary of Dr John Dee, and the Catalogue of his Library of Manuscripts, edited by J. 0. Halliwell, was published by the Camden Society in 1842.

 DEED is a contract in writing, sealed and delivered by the party bound to the party benefited, Contracts or obligations under seal are called in English law specialties, and down to a recent date they took precedence in pay ment over simple contracts, whether written or not. Writing, sealing, and- delivery are all essential to a deed. The signature of the party charged is not material, and the deed is not void for want of a date. Delivery, it is held, may be complete without the actual handing over of the deed ; it is sufficient if the act of sealing were accompanied by words or acts signifying that the deed was intended to be presently binding ; and delivery to a third person for the use of the party benefited will be sufficient. On the other hand, the deed may be handed over to a third person as an escrow (ecrit), in which case it will not take effect as a deed until certain conditions are performed. Such con ditional delivery may be inferred from the circumstances attending the transaction, although the conditions be not expressed in words. A deed indented, or indenture (so ealled because written in counterparts on the same sheet of parchment, separated by cutting a wavy line between them), is between two or more parties who contract mutually. The actual indentation is not now necessary to an indenture. A deed-poll (without indentation) is a deed in which one party binds himself without reference to any corresponding obligations undertaken by another party. See CONTRACT.

 DEER (Cervidce), a family of Ruminant Artiodactyle Mammals, distinguished by the possession of deciduous branching horns or antlers, and by the presence of spots on the young. The antlers are borne by the frontal bone, and generally begin to appear towards the end of spring. At that season there is a marked determination of blood to the head, the vessels surrounding the frontal eminences become temporarily enlarged, and the budding horn grows with marvellous rapidity, the antlers of a full-grosvn stag being produced in ten weeks. At first the horns are soft, vascular, and highly sensitive, and are covered with a delicate hairy integument known as the &quot; velvet,&quot; amply provided with blood-vessels. On attaining their full growth the &quot; burr,&quot; consisting of a ring of osseous tubercles at the base of the horn, is formed, and this by pressing upon, gradually cuts off the blood-vessels which supply nutriment to the antlers. The velvety covering then begins to shrivel and to peel off, its disappearance being hastened by the deer rubbing its antlers against trees and rocks ; while the grooves, which are seen to furrow the now exposed surface, mark the place of the former blood-vessels. With the single exception of the reindeer, antlers are con fined to the male sex, and are fully developed at the com mencement of the rutting season, when they are brought into use as offensive weapons in the sanguinary fights between the males for possession of the females. When the season of love is over they are shed, reappearing, how ever, in the following spring, and continuing to grow larger and heavier until the deer attains its full growth. Whether the deer inhabiting the warmer regions of the earth shed their antlers every year has been a matter of considerable dispute, but in a recent work (Highlands of Central India) Forsyth states that he has convinced himself, from repeated observations, that in Indian deer this operation does not take place annually. In castrated animals the antlers either^ cease to appear or are merely rudimentary, while any influence whatever which disturbs the general system seems detrimental to their growth, as was observed in a case quoted by Darwin, where the antlers of a Wapiti deer, formed during a voyage from America, were singularly stunted, although the same individual afterwards, when living under normal condi tions, produced perfect horns. Spots are common to the young of so many species of deer that their presence may fairly be regarded as a family character. These spots persist through life in such forms as the Axis, or Spotted Deer (Axis maculata), but in the majority of species they altogether disappear in the adult form. Darwin considers that in all such cases the old have had their colour changed in the course of time, while the young have remained but little altered, and this he holds has been effected &quot; through the principle of inheritance at corre sponding ages.&quot; The lachrymal sinus, or &quot; tearpit,&quot; is present in most species of deer. This consists of a cavity beneath each eye, capable of being opened at pleasure, in which a waxy substance of a disagreeable odour is secreted, the purpose of which is not yet clearly-ascertained. &quot; The big round tears &quot; which the contemplative Jacques watched, as they &quot; Coursed one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase,&quot; is Shakespeare s interpretation of the appearance presented by the motion of the glistening edges of the tearpits in the stag. The deer family comprises 8 genera and 52 species, distributed over all the great regions of the earth except the Ethiopian, and living under the most diverse climatic conditions. Their total absence from Africa south of the Sahara maybe due, as A. R. Wallace (Geographical Distri bution of Animals) contends, to the presence in the past, as now, of a great belt of dry and desert country effectually preventing the immigration from Europe into Africa of such a forest-frequenting group as the deer, while favour ing the introduction of antelopes, which attain their greatest development in that region. They are also absent from Australia, although present in the Auslro-Malayan region. The following are some of the more remarkable species. The Red Deer or Stag (Cervus elaphus), the largest of the British deer, is a native of the temperate regions of Europe and Northern Asia, inhabiting dense forests, or fre quenting moors and barren hill-sides as in Scotland. In England, where in feudal times it was protected by forest laws, which set greater value on the life of a stag than on that of a man, it was formerly abundant in all the royal forests. It is now almost extinct in that country, as well as in Ireland, in the wild state. In Scotland considerable herds are still to be found in the Highlands, and in several of the Western Isles, although, owing probably to the diminished extent of their feeding grounds, to the breeding in and in which takes place, and to the anxiety of deer stalkers to secure the finest heads, the species is believed to be degenerating. The finest specimens in this country are found in the deer forests of Sutherlandshire, but these are inferior in size to those still obtained in the east of Europe. The antlers of the Stag are rounded, and bear three &quot; tines,&quot; or branches, and a crown consisting of three or more points. The points increase in number with the age of the creature, and when 12 are present it is known in Scot land as a &quot;royal stag.&quot; This number, however, is sometimes exceeded, as in the case of a pair of antlers, weighing 74 Bb, from a stag killed in Transylvania, which had 45 points. The antlers during the second year consist of a simple un- branched stem, to which a tine or branch is added in each suc ceeding year, until the normal development is attained, after which their growth is somewhat irregular. The Red Deer is gregarious, the females and calves herding together apart from the males except at the rutting season, which begins about the end of September and lasts for three weeks. Dur- 