458 CEKVUS. 



The dimensions given may be regarded as the average 

 size of antlers having the characters above described : the 

 palm is most subject to variation in regard to its breadth, 

 the two antlers of the same pair rarely agreeing in this 

 respect. In one pair, showing the second character de- 

 scribed, I have seen the right antler with a palm twelve 

 inches broad, and the left with one sixteen inches broad. In 

 a pair in the Hunterian Museum, showing the third cha- 

 racter, the left palm is nineteen inches across, the right 

 twenty-three inches; but the palm sometimes attains the 

 breadth of three feet. When circumstances have favoured 

 such unusually full development of the antlers, it is some- 

 times associated with modifications which increase the 

 strength of the supporting beam. There is an example of 

 this kind in the skull and antlers of a noble Megaceros 

 which are fixed over the entry to the hall of the ancient 

 Manor-house of Knowle, near Sevenoaks, Kent : the cir- 

 cumference of the basal ridge or ' burr ' is sixteen inches ; 

 a strong ridge is developed from the whole under part of 

 the beam, and is continued into a short-pointed snag, 

 above which the beam begins to expand into the palm. 



Having noticed the principal varieties of the antlers of 

 the Megaceros depending upon age or individual peculi- 

 arities, I may briefly advert to the facts which elucidate the 

 relation of the antlers to the sex of the great extinct Cer- 

 vine animal. In the existing species of the Deer-tribe, the 

 frontal furniture is peculiar to the males, with the excep- 

 tion of the Rein-deer, and, occasionally, the Elk ; natural- 

 ists were therefore interested in ascertaining whether the 

 Megaceros pushed its affinity to those large existing species 

 by the development of antlers in the female sex. 



Mr. Maunsell, in a letter quoted by Dr. Hart, descrip- 

 tive of the discovery of numerous remains of the Megaceros 



