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second class hp. places the common stag, the common roehuck, the au- 

 rochs, the ox which seems to have been the wild original of our domestic 

 ox, and the buffalo with approximated horns, which is analogous with 

 the musk-ox of Canada. Besides these, there appears a dubious species, 

 the great deer of La Somme, which much resembles the common fallow- 

 deer. 



From what can be determined, with respect to the beds in which they 

 are found, the known species are always, he observes, in those which are 

 more recent than those in which the unknown species are found. This, 

 he says, is certain, at least as to the stags, the roebucks, and the oxen, of 

 the Valley of La Somme, which are in the loose and superficial sands, 

 or in the turf. The aurochs equally appear to be found in the alluvial 

 tracts of recent formation, which are yet susceptible of augmentation 

 or diminution ; and the stags' horns of England have been frequently 

 taken out of rivers. 



As to the unknown species, it must be remarked, he says, that the 

 elk of Ireland, although it is necessary to get through the beds of turf 

 to find it, yet it is not in the turf itself, but in the beds beneath it : the 

 stag of Etampes, found in the sand of La Beauce, was lower than the 

 earth deposited from the fresh water, which covers the sand; and lastly, 

 the buffalo of Siberia, accompanying the fossil elephants and rhinoceroses, 

 may be supposed to be of the same period, and to be enveloped in the 

 same beds. The stag of Scania is the only one of the unknown animals 

 which has been said to be found in the turf; but this circumstance, he 

 thinks, requires to be proved. 



The knowledge which we at present possess of the situations in which 

 fossils are found is at present so confined, as to give but little solidity 

 to the opinions which he here offers. A remark of another kind is made 

 with a much greater assurance of its certainty. The known fossil ru- 

 minants are also animals of the climate in which they are now found ; 

 thus the stag, ox, aurochs, roebuck, musk-ox of Canada, now dwell, and 

 have always dwelt, in the cold countries ; whilst the species which we 



