Figure 5 in REVIEW Bounds of diversity: queer zoology in Europe from Aristotle to John Hunter

Figure 5. The first known image of a female deer endowed with antlers, beautifully formed, was published in Miscellanea curiosa in 1684. It was submitted by German physician and alchemist Joel Langelott who wrote that the animal ('an amazing example of nature's abundance') had been captured in the area of Husamen (? perhaps Husum) in August 1597 and preserved in the hall of the Duke of Husum. A poet ('a pretty bad one') had added some verses in German to the illustration that was made from the exhibit. Upon hearing that the image was to be submitted for publication, prolific German scholar and poet Daniel Georg Morhof, an acquaintance of Langelott, took pity on the situation of the beast ('which Mother Nature in her great kindness had adorned in such a remarkable fashion') and decided that it deserved to be commended to posterity by means of a 'charming and elegant' elegy in Latin titled 'The stag speaks', which was also reproduced in Miscellanea curiosa alongside the picture. It begins: 'I was a female stag: look at me, sirs! do not believe that I was a stag: For as a female I bore antlers that should be given to males. A male neck was joined to a female body. See how that neck swells with adopted branches! Look how both sexes are mingled in a new shape And now a new shape makes a new androgyne.' (Langelott, 1680; transl. Carolinne White). Image: Bodleian library, University of Oxford.