(Jn Anhnah depicted on Antique Monuments. JjJTT 



bones of the animal to which it was said that Andromeda had 

 been exposed, and as one of these bones was thirty-six feet in 

 length, it is probable it was the lower jaw of a whale. 



The ruminating animals had also attracted the attention of 

 Egyptian, Greek, and Roman statuaries. The Antelope Ga- 

 zella, which has been seen in Europe only within these few years, 

 is well represented on the monuments of ancient Egypt. This 

 is also the case with the Oryx^ or the antelope with straight 

 horns, which, figured in profile, and in the usual rude style o{ 

 their artists, would probably be the origin of the fable of the 

 unicorn. We say the fable; for an animal with cloven feet, and 

 the middle of whose frontal bone is divided by a suture, cannot 

 have a horn springing from an osseous tissue in the mesial line 

 of its head. The Irish elk, so long regarded as a fossil species, 

 was also known to the Romans. At least Hibbert, if he has 

 not found its representation in the delineations of Pompeii and 

 Herculaneum, has at all events discovered it in an ancient paint- 

 ing and sculpture, which has been found in Rome. This spe- 

 cies, which the drying up of lakes and morasses has contributed 

 to extinguish, appears to have lived within the times of histori- 

 cal record, since Opian has very well described it, as has been 

 previously observed by Aldrovandus. Another circumstance that 

 very distinctly proves how recent the extinction of this species 

 must be, is that Hart has observed a callus on one of its bones 

 which was discovered in Ireland, — a callus which appeared to have 

 grown up after the infliction of a wound with some pointed and 

 cutting instrument. The Cervus euryceros of Aldrovandus, or 

 the stag with gigantic horns, is, then, a species which has be- 

 come extinct on the surface of our globe, within the period of 

 historical record, as is demonstrated not only by the painting 

 discovered at Rome, but also by the descriptions which are 

 found in Opian, in Munster, and also in Jonston. Rut more- 

 over, the bones of this elk being found mixed in the same muddy 

 deposits with the bones of the rhinoceros, the elephant, the hip- 

 popotamus, and the hyena, ought it not to have been the same 

 with them ? Ry no means ; and assuredly there is nothing con- 

 trary to the usual laws of nature in the contrary supposition. 

 Can it be regarded as contrary to the usual order of things, that 

 an animal that was continually pursued by the Romans, and 



