3o6 Lloyd's natural history. 



is unknown, and the suggestion naturally arises that conditions 

 suitable for their existence may have occurred there and been 

 wanting elsewhere. The Musk-Ox, which is now restricted to 

 Arctic America, is such an essentially Arctic animal that it is 

 hard to believe that it could have inhabited a country with 

 a temperature suitable to the existence of the Hippopotamus ; 

 while the Saiga is equally characteristic of the open steppes of 

 Russia. 



Equally marked as the superiority of the fossil Bison over its 

 living representative, was the excess in size of the Pleistocene 

 Red Deer {Cerviis elaphiis) over its existing Scottish descend- 

 ants, some of the antlers from the caverns and brick-earths 

 being of enormous length and girth, and likewise notable for 

 the number of points they carry. The Fallow Deer was 

 certainly unknown from both the deposits last mentioned, 

 although it has been said to occur in a bed on the Norfolk 

 coast ; but the superficial deposits of the same coast yield 

 remains of the closely-allied Brown's Fallow Deer (C. browni). 

 In cavern-deposits the place of the Fallow Deer was more than 

 filled by the splendid Irish Djer (C giganteus), generally 

 kno.vn by the incorrect name of the Irish "Elk," and the splen- 

 did antlers of which are larger and more massive than those of 

 any other member of the Family. Although deriving its name 

 from the abundance in which it occurs in Ireland, remains of this 

 Deer is met with in most of the cavern-deposits, brick-earths, and 

 river-gravels of England ; and it should be mentioned that al- 

 though in Ireland its remains are commonly stated to come from 

 the peat-bogs, they really occur in the shell-marl underlying the 

 peat. In the outward direction of its widely palmated antlers, 

 the Irish D^er differs considerably from the Fallow Deer, but 

 an extinct species recently described from the superficial 

 deposits of Germany, under the name of Ruff's Deer, sc 

 closely connects the two as to show that they constitute bui 



