CERVIDJi 373 



Abbeville, which, from the relative position and direction of 

 the brow-snag and mid-snag, and from the terminal palm, he 

 regards as a large extinct species of fallow-deer ; the name 

 Cervus Somonensis has since been attached to this species. 

 But there once existed a group (Megaeeros, fig. 125) charac- 

 terized by a form of antler at present unknown amongst exist- 

 ing species of deer. With a beam (b) expanding and flattening 

 towards the summit, and a brow-snag (p), as in the Dama 

 tribe, this antler shows a back-snag (bz). Moreover, in antlers, 

 showing an expanse of ten feet in a straight line from tip to tip, 

 and which, from their size and form, seem to have been deve- 

 loped by the deer at its prime, the brow T -snag expands and 

 sometimes bifurcates — a variety never seen in the fallow-deer, 

 but which becomes exaggerated in the rein-deer group. The 

 representative of the subgenus Megaeeros is an extinct species 

 (M. Hibcmicus, fig. 125), remarkable for its great size, and 

 especially for the great relative magnitude and noble form 

 of its antlers : it is the species commonly but erroneously 

 called the "Irish elk;" for it is a true deer, intermediate 

 between the fallow and rein-deer ; and though most abundant 

 in, it is not peculiar to, Ireland. In that country it occurs in 

 the shell-marl underlying the extensive turbaries. In England 

 its remains have been found in lacustrine beds, brick-earth, red 

 crag, and ossiferous caves.* 



The rein-deer {Cervus Taranclus) has peculiar antlers (fig. 

 126), and proportionably the largest of any of existing species. 

 The beam is somewhat flattened throughout, but expands only 

 and suddenly at its extremity, a similar expansion charac- 

 terizing the brow-snag (br) and mid-snag (bz), two, three, or 

 more points being developed from all these expansions in fully- 

 developed antlers. The brow-snag is remarkable for its length. 

 There is also frequently a short back-snag. It is plain, 

 therefore, from the presence of this snag, from the great rela- 



* Owen, History of British Fossil Mammals, p. 141. 



