{iQ2 Dr Hibb^rt onihe History of the Cervus Euryceros, 



was printed, contains one of the best anatomical accounts of 

 the animal which has yet been published. 



What is known or unknown regarding this animal I shall 

 now sum up under distinct heads. 



1. The Cervus Euryceros was the contemporary of such extinct 

 animals of Europe as the Elephant, the Rhinoceros, the Hy- 

 ena, the Hippopotamus, and divers others, 



Guvier very promptly arrived at this conclusion, which was 

 repeated by Professor Buckland, in the first edition of his 

 ReliquicB Diluviance, on the authority of the gissement of 

 this animal at Walton in Essex. But since the Fossil Cervus 

 of Ireland and the Isle of Man was proved to have existed at 

 a very recent date, the geologists of the Diluvian School have 

 conceived that they were at fault. The animal has accord- 

 ingly been transferred from the ancient diluvial clay and gravel, 

 in which he was originally 'placed, to the very highest allu- 

 vial bed of Mr De la Beche's late order of superposition. But 

 that this removal is justifiable, may be very fairly doubted. I 

 am rather of opinion that he ought to again descend to his 

 old associates, the elephant and the hippopotamus, or that 

 they ought to move a step higher to him, and on this point 

 the fact adduced by Cuvier may be quoted. He has stated 

 that, in excavating the canal of Ourcq, near Sevran, in the 

 forest of Bondi, the remains of this Cervus were found pre- 

 cisely in the same place as the bones of elephants. " On a 

 trouve dans les fouilles du canal de POurcq, pres de Sevran, 

 dans la foret de Bondi, a six lieues de Paris, precisement au 

 meme endroit que les os d'elephans, une parte superieure de 

 crane du genre du cerf, avec deux moignons de bois, qui, dans 

 tout ce qui en reste, paroissent resembler au cerf a bois gigan- 

 tesques." This testimony is decisive, and we may safely as- 

 sert, that the Cervus euryceros or Irish elk, so far from being 

 a recent upstart possessor of the soil of Europe, is entitled to 

 dispute his genealogical distinction with all such supposed fa- 

 milies of greater antiquity, as are included in Mr De la Beche's 

 diluvium, under the name of the Mastodon, the Elephant, the 

 Rhinoceros, the Elasmotherium, the Trogontherium, the Me- 

 gatherium, the Megalonyx, the Tiger, the Hyena, or the Hip- 



