106 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



The Uri and Bisontes of the Hercynian Forest have 

 disappeared, and the Machlis of Caesar, if it was iden- 

 tical with the Sech and Schelch of the middle ages, 

 and the same as the Irish Elk, by Breton bards trans- 

 muted into the Questing beast of romance, was a real 

 existing species, so late as the eighth century, and per- 

 haps even to the fifteenth ; it is nevertheless an extinct 

 animal, and its bones are found under circumstances 

 similar to the Megatherium of America, and nearly in 

 the same chemical condition. Next, we have the 

 exuviae of existing species, exclusive of horse, beaver, 

 &c. ; the Elk is not unfrequently found among those 

 of extinct animals, in the same regions where that 

 ruminant now resides; and we ask, by what theory, 

 compatible with the sentence pronounced upon otners, 

 these are to be disposed of? 



