CERVUS ELAPHUS. 475 



magnitude, must evidently belong to the celebrated extinct 

 species found in Ireland," viz. the Megaceros Hibernicus. 

 Near the spot where these fossils were found, part of a 

 Mammoth's skull with two grinding-teeth was exhumed 

 from the same stratum of diluvial clay. The dimensions 

 above given do not, however, exceed those of the ancient 

 Red-deer exhumed in Lancashire and Derbyshire ; whilst 

 the basal circumference of the antler of the Megaceros is 

 commonly from twelve to sixteen inches. It is more pro- 

 bable, therefore, that the large antlers from Chatteris 

 were remains of the Cervus ElapJius, when it existed 

 under circumstances which favoured the full development 

 of its specific characters. 



I have been favoured by Jabez Allies, Esq. of Lower 

 Wick, near Worcester, with sketches of nearly equally 

 fine antlers of the Bed-deer, of the discovery of which he 

 has given the following account in the Worcester Journal, 

 October 3rd, 1844. 



" At the southward part of the cutting across the mea- 

 dow at Diglis, near this city, for the Severn Navigation 

 Lock, several relics of antiquity have been found, namely : 

 At the depth of about twenty feet in the alluvial soil 

 portions of small trees, bushes, and hazel-nuts, intermingled 

 with fragments of stags-horns and bones ; and a little 

 nearer to the river southward, at the depth of about 

 twenty-five feet, the relics of an oak-tree ; and still nearer 

 the river, at the depth of about thirty feet, a great num- 

 ber of bones of the deer kind, and of small short-horned 

 cattle and other animals, together with fragments of Roman 

 urns and pans of red earth, and a piece of Samian ware ; 

 and a little nearer to the river, at the depth of about thirty 

 feet, the horns and part of the skull of a large Stag ; but 

 whether it is of the Elk kind, or of what other species, I 



