1885.] 



NATURAL SCIENCES OP PHILADELPHIA. 



193 



P.T 



side the broad plate of bone gradually tapers off into the tine. 

 It is a curious fact that these great ear-like processes descend 

 considerably below the level of the eyes, so that the animal's 

 vision in a lateral direction must have been seriously intei'fered 

 with. It is difficult to understand how any such structure of the 

 antlers could have arisen or what its purpose was. 



On comparing the antlers of the extinct species with those of 



the moose, it becomes evident 

 that the former consist of the 

 same pai'ts as those of the lat- 

 ter, with something added to 

 them. Just what these addi- 

 tional parts are is by no means 

 easy to say. The anterior tine 

 (of the ear-shaped process) may 

 be the bez-antler, while the pos- 

 terior one may correspond to 

 the tine which in Megaceros 

 (figs. 4 and 4 a, P. T.), the fal- 

 low deer (see Brooke, P. Z. S., 

 1878, p. 914, fig. 9), and some 

 others, is given off from the 

 hinder surface of the beam 

 nearly opposite the bez-antler 

 (d in Brooke's system). If in Megaceros the palmated portion 

 of the antler were bent sharply upwards nearly at right-angles 

 with the beam, the posterior tine directed more outwards and 

 connected by a broad and flaring plate of bone with the bez-antler 

 in front, the resulting condition would be very much what we 

 find in Cervalces. If this conjecture as to the homologies of 

 these tines be correct, Sir Victor Brooke's views on the parts of 

 the moose's antler can hardly be accepted (P. Z. S., 1878, p. 915). 

 It is worthy of notice that in Cervalces almost all the weight of 

 the antlers is in advance of the occiput. To a much smaller 

 extent this is true of the moose, while in most of the Cervidse 

 the weight is entirely back of the occiput. 



It might be suspected (as for a time 1 did suspect) that in this 

 fossil we have to do with a case of monstrosity rather than with 

 a true species character — some such phenomenon as the double- 



Fig. 4 a. 



Right antler of Megaceros hibemicus, from 



the inside. 



14 



