HISTORY OF THE ARTIODACTYLA 413 



over the continent shifting in accordance with the many ch- 

 matic changes of that epoch. There was, however, at least one 

 Pleistocene genus {"^Cervalces) different from any now living 

 and different from any known in the eastern hemisphere. The 

 most complete specimen of this animal is a skeleton in the 

 museum of Princeton University, found beneath a bog in 

 northern New Jersey, though other bones, collected in Ken- 

 tucky and elsewhere, are very probably referable to it. fCer- 

 valces was very nearly related to the Moose, the neck, body, 

 limbs and feet being almost identical in the two genera, but 

 the skull and antlers were notably different ; the nasal bones 

 were not nearly so much shortened as in the Moose, indicating 

 that the proboscis-like snout was not so large or inflated as in 

 the latter. The antlers were quite unique ; though in general 

 like those of the Moose, they were much less palmated and they 

 had, in addition, a great trumpet-like plate of bone on the lower 

 side of each antler (see Fig. 117, p. 209), such as occurs in no 

 other known member of the family. Although jCervalces has 

 not been found in the Old World, it was almost certainly an 

 immigrant from eastern Asia. 



The Moose, Caribou and Wapiti were unquestionably im- 

 migrants and came in not earlier than the Pleistocene. Noth- 

 ing is known in the Pliocene or more ancient Tertiary epochs 

 of North America which could be twisted into forms ancestral 

 to these typically Old World genera. With the southern deer 

 (Odocoileus, etc.) the matter stands differently, for these have a 

 probable American ancestry extending back to the lower 

 Miocene and possibly much farther. On the other hand, it is 

 not altogether certain that these may not have been Pliocene 

 immigrants, for their genealogy is still in an extremely frag- 

 mentary and unsatisfactory condition. The North American 

 genus, Odocoileus, extended back to the Pliocene with very 

 little change. The annoying, unrecorded gap of the upper 

 Pliocene and the meagre representation of the middle Pliocene 

 mammals given by the Blanco leave us without information 



