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Notice nf the Sheleton of a Red Deer (Cervus Ulaphus) found at Cheswich, 

 North Durham. By J. S. Donaldson, Esq. 



On the 2d June 1835, some workmen engaged in making a drain 

 upon the farm of Mr George Scott, in the township of Cheswick, North 

 Durham, having dug to the depth of five feet, came upon the head of 

 what they conceived to be the skeleton of a horse, but which, on a 

 further examination, proved to be, as I shall endeavour to shew, that 

 of a quadruped of the genus Cervus. The skeleton was in an upright 

 or standing posture, embedded in a kind of mossy earth, above which 

 was sand, and the workmen had to dig about four feet lower than the 

 point where they found the head, before they succeeded in getting the 

 whole of it out of the ground. I regret that I could not procure the 

 entire skeleton, the greater part having been dispersed and buried 

 again previous to my being informed of its discover^' ; and I particu- 

 larly regret not having seen the head, which would have enabled me 

 to have decided at once, and withovit any doubt, on the order and 

 genus to which the animal was referable. But from the description 

 of those parts of the skeleton, which I did not see, but which I received 

 from Mr Scott and his workmen, particularly as to the absence of 

 cutting teeth in the upper face, and the hoofs being cloven, as well as 

 from the few bones which I was able to procure, viz. the two meta- 

 carpal or shank bones, and several of the ribs, which I have brought 

 for the inspection of the members of the Club, I have no doubt of its 

 being the remains of a Red Deer, Cervus Elajahus. No antlers were 

 found, they having either been removed previous to our discovery, or 

 else the animal had died at the period when the antlers were shed, 

 and before the new ones were grown ; or it may have been the skeleton 

 of a female, which in general has no antlers. I may here remark, 

 that antlers of the Red Deer have frequently been found in the bogs 

 and low grounds of this township, some of which I have myself inspec- 

 ted. If I am correct in the supposition that these are the remains of 

 a red deer, it would appear that these beautiful and majestic animals, 

 which are now only to be found in a state of nature in the most remote 

 and inaccessible parts of the Highlands of Scotland, in the New 

 Forest in Hampshire, the higher moors and wastes of Cornwall and 

 Devonshire, and in the woods and hills of Martendale forest near 

 Ulswater, in Westmoreland, were once the denizens of our Northum- 

 brian wilds and forests ; and the country between Belford and the 

 Tweed, including the Kyloe and Lowick hills and moors, appear to 

 have afforded haunts well suited to their habits. Cultivation, and the 

 increase of population, which, since the Union, have here in particular 

 been so much extended and increased, have extirpated the larger 

 beasts of chase, replacing them, however, with animals of much greater 

 utility to man, and creating out of what was, at the period of the acces- 

 sion of King James the First to the English throne, a desert waste, one 

 of the best cultivated and most fertile districts in the kingdom. 



