120 NEW- YORK FAUNA. 



FOSSIL STAG. 



Elaphus americanus. 



plate xxix. fig. 1. tooth, natural size j horns and postekioh parts of skull reduced. 



Fossil Deer. Wistab, Am. Trans. Vol. 1, p. 377, New Series, pi. 10, fig. 4. 

 Cervus americanus. Harlan, Fauna Americana, p. 245. 

 Fossil Deer. Emmons, Mass. Report, 1840, p. 82. 



In the Cabinet of the Lyceum of Natural History, New-York, is a portion of a pair of 

 horns attached to a fragment of skull, dug up near the mouth of the Raquet river in this State, 

 near the forty-fifth parallel of latitude. It bears a label in the handwriting of Dr. Mitchill, 

 purporting that it belonged to the C. tarandus, or Rein-deer. Its size and appearance indi- 

 cates a nearer affinity to the E. canadensis, or Stag just described. The following comparison 

 was made of this fossil with a gigantic pair of horns of the E. canadensis, in the Cabinet of 

 the Lyceum. These latter measured three feet five inches across from tip to tip, and two feet 

 ten inches high from burr to tip in a straight line. 



FOSSIL. RECENT. 



Distance from between the horns to the occipital ridge, 4 ' 1 4 • 8 



Breadth of cranium behind the horns, 4 • 5 4 ' 6 



Ditto above the condyloid processes, 6"0 6 - 



Depth across the occipital foramen, 4 " 4 4 • 5 



Circumference of horn above the burr, 9 • 6 9 • 



From tip to tip, compared with corresponding points on the 



recent specimen, 40 • 44 • 



In the fossil, the horns present the same grooved and ridged appearance as in the American 

 Stag ; they rise outward, upward, and slightly backward, then forward and upward. Indica- 

 tions of one or two antlers are evident. The figure in the plate will give a better idea of the 

 appearance and direction of the horns, than a detailed description. Through the carelessness 

 of the engraver, the posterior view of the skull is represented as being of the natural size. 



I am unacquainted with the circumstances under which this skull was found, but have ven- 

 tured to arrange it provisionally with the bones described by Wistar and Harlan in the work 

 cited above; Dr. Emmons has described a tooth, taken from a clay bed in Chautauque county 

 in 1839. It is an old tooth, and is the last on the right side of the upper jaw. Through the 

 kindness of Dr. Emmons, I have been permitted to give a figure of the tooth. The following 

 are its dimensions : 



Depth, 1-3. 



Transverse diameter of the crown, 1 • 5. 



Shortest diameter, 1*2. 



The surface of the crown is too much injured, to enable me to render it with perfect accuracy. 

 I learn that other teeth from the same locality, but larger, are in the Cabinet of Yale College. 



