6 ARKIV FÖR ZOOLOGI. BAND 3. N:0 14. 



above the sutures with the premaxillary, resp. maxillary in 

 such a way as they do in the Fallow Deer. In the latter 

 animal, the breadth anteriorly of both nasals taken together 

 does not differ so very much from the combined breadth of 

 the same bones on a level with the antorbital vacuities as 

 the former dimension corresponds to two thirds of the latter. 

 In Megaceros on the contrary the combined width of both 

 nasals anteriorly is contained three times in the distance 

 between the small antorbital vacuities. In the Reindeer the 

 difference is not qiiite so great, but the former dimension 

 is, nevertheless, contained fully two times, or more, in 

 the latter. 



With regard to the shallowness of the preorbital pit 

 Megaceros in a very remarkable manner differs as well from 

 the Reindeer as from the Fallow Deer. 



It is, no doubt, the palmated type of the antiers of the 

 Giant Deer which has caused that it has been referred to 

 the Damine group of deer. It cannot be denied that there 

 is a rather great, superficial likeness between the antiers of 

 a Giant Deer and those of a Fallow Deer, but a closer exa- 

 mination shall reveal, I think, that there is a more impor- 

 tant correspondence between the former and those of a Rein- 

 deer, which also verv often assume a more or less palmated 

 type. The palmation in itself must be regarded as a charac- 

 teristic subjected to considerable variation which is seen not 

 only when the antiers of Reindeer are considered, but even 

 the typically most palmated antiers of all, those of the Elk, 

 very often lose this characteristic. ^ 



If we begin the comparison at the base of the antiers 

 when discussing these organs of the three types of deer taken 

 into consideration above. it must strike the spectator that 

 the burr of the antiers of the Giant Deer is very scantily 

 developed. In this respect it differs considerably from the 

 Fallow Deer and approaches the Reindeer which, however, 

 is almost a degree still weaker in this respect. Another cor- 

 respondence between the Giant Deer and the Reindeer, and 

 which is more important, lies in the presence of a flattened 

 and palmated brow-tine. This tine is certainly somewhat 

 differently developed in these two types but, unlike the con- 



^ Conf. Lönnberg: On the Variation of the Elk. Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 London 1902. Vol. II Pl. II. 



