878 EXTINCT MAMMALIA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



antlers of both of those varieties or species. The specimen has no brow branch, but 

 in its usual position immediately above the almost obsolete burr there is a slight 

 conical eminence. The first branch projects about six inches above the base of the 

 antler, and extends forward and outward to about the same distance, when it appears 

 to have expanded in a palmate extremity, the greater part of which is lost. The 

 course of the main trunk is sigmoid, flattened on the inner side, and convex on the 

 outer side. It gives off no other branch than the one mentioned, to the broken end 

 of the specimen. A few inches below the latter posteriorly the border of the antler 

 is extended into a narrow heel-like expansion. Near the base the antler is four and 

 a quarter inches in circumference, and is nearly the same .at the remote broken end. 

 The anterior branch is flattened cylindrical, and a little over three inches in circum- 

 ference at the middle. 



The fossil may perhaps be viewed as the antler of a Keindeer in which the brow 

 branch is obsolete, and the first branch is unusually high in its origin. 



Cervus americanus. 



Cemis, Wistar : Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 1818, 377, PI. X, Figs. 4, 5. Owen : Pr. Geol. Soc. Lond. 



1842, III, 693. 

 Cermis americanus, Harlan: Fauna Amer. 1825, 24-5; Edinb. New Phil. Jour. 1834, XVII, 358; 



Traus. Geol. Soc. Penn. 1835, 70. Cooper: Month. Am. Jour. Geol. 1831, 174, 206. Leidy: 



Anc. Fauna Neb. 1853, 8. 

 Cervus resembling C. Alces, Cooper, etc. : Am. Jour. Sc. 1831, XX, 370 ; Month. Am. Jour. Geol. 



1831, 207 ; Edinb. New Phil. Jour. 1831, XI, 363. 

 Elk, Croom : Am. Jour. Sc. 1835, XXVII, 170. 



Elaphus americanus, In part of Dekay: Nat. Hist. N. York; Zool. 1842, I, 120. 

 Cervus americanus Jossilis, Meyer: Paliseologica 1832, 92. Mantell : Medals of Creation 1844,375. 



Pictet : Traits d. Paleon. 1844, I, 305 ; 1853, I, 359. ■ 



The remains upon which this species was first indicated consists of a mutilated 

 cranial portion of a skull with the roots of the antlers, described and figured by Dr. 

 Wistar. The specimen was found, according to this author, at Big-bone-lick, Ken- 

 tucky, and formed part of a collection of fossil bones presented to the American 

 Philosophical Society by Thomas Jefferson. It presents a more chalky aspect and 

 friable condition than is observed among the fossils from Big-bone-lick, which leads 

 me to suspect it was found elsewhere. Accompanying the cranial specimen there 

 are portions with the roots of the antlers of another, and two metacarpals, un- 

 described by Dr. Wistar, all in the same friable and abraded condition. 



The fossils certainly indicate an extinct species, and one which approximated, if it 

 did not exceed in size, the great Irish Deer. 



The roots of the antlers projected directly outwards, almost on a level with the 

 intervening frontals, as in the Moose. In one of the specimens, the broken end of 



