FAUNA AMERICANA. 247 



horns (about four inches only of one remains in the 

 fossil) proceed in a perfectly straight and lateral 

 direction, and the portion of the forehead between 

 the horns is almost straight in the fossil ; in the 

 two last characters it is peculiar ; there is also a 

 much greater distance from the skull to the basal 

 knob of the horns in the fossil. 



A complete set of horns, or jaws containing 

 teeth, belonging to this animal, have not jet been 

 discovered ; but in a collection of bones disinter- 

 red at Big-bone-lick, which we have received a few 

 weeks since,*^ (and for which we are indebted to 

 the politeness of Major S. H. Long,) there are frag- 

 ments of jaws, together with a number of molar 

 teeth, which I have every reason to believe be- 

 longed to the fossil Elk under consideration. Oir 

 comparing these teeth with those of the recent 

 Elk, very little difference is observable, except 

 that the}^ are longer and more compressed at their 

 crowns. 



Locality. The bones of the American fossil 

 Elk have hitherto been discovered only in the 

 morass near the falls of Ohio, called Big-bone-lick, 

 in company with the bones of the Mastodon, &c. ; 

 we have lately examined some designs in posses- 

 sion of Dr. Bigsby, which appear to represent the 

 femur, the humerus, and portions of the horns of 

 a fossil Elk from Canada. 



Third Tribe. Prominences of the os frontis 

 furnished with a horny sheath, composed of agglu- 



