88 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. iv. 



and the ape; the last being here, as in the Meiocene 

 age (Fig. 8), the most highly specialised form. 1 



The Development of Antlers in the Deer. 



It is not out of place here to call attention to the history 

 of the development of antlers in the deer. In the lower 

 Meiocenes no member of the family possessed antlers. 

 In the mid Meiocene strata of the age of the Sables de 

 1'Orleanais, Professor Gaudry 2 notes small, erect, branch- 

 ing antlers persistent through life of Proeervulus aure- 

 lianensis of Thenay. This most remarkable antler, 

 characterised by the absence of a burr or rose, is identical 

 with that figured and described by Professor Leidy 3 from 

 Niobrara, and considered by him intermediate between 

 the antlers of the deer and the horns of the antelopes. 

 It may fairly claim to be the most rudimentary form of 

 antler belonging to a type which is no longer represented. 

 The true starting-point of the antlered deer of the post- 

 Meiocene ages is presented by the simple forked crown 

 of the C. dicroceros of the mid Meiocene (Fig. 8). The 

 cervine antler in the upper Meiocene becomes more com- 

 plex, but is still small and erect like that of the roe. In 

 the Pleiocene it becomes larger and longer, and altogether 

 more complex and differentiated, some forms, such as 

 the Cervus dicranios (Fig. 16) of Nesti, being the most 

 complicated antlers known either in the living or fossil 

 state. These successive changes are analogous to those 

 which are to be observed in the development of the 



1 In this group the Macacus inuus of Barbary represents the upper 

 Pleiocene apes. 



2 Gaudry, Les Enchainements, p. 87. 



3 Leidy, Extinct Mammalian Fauna of Dakota and Nebraska, 4to. Acad. 

 Nat. Sc., Philadelphia, second series, vii. PI. xxviii. Fig. 8. 



