CERVUS DAMA. 483 



ledge of the characters of the associated horns, whether 

 the cervine remains referred to by Mr. Neill, belonged to 

 the Rein-deer ; but I subjoin a figure of a metatarsal 

 bone, precisely corresponding with that of the existing 

 Eein-deer, which bone was found at the depth of five feet 

 in the fens of Cambridgeshire. 



Dr. Fleming* cites a pair of Deer's horns found in a marl- 

 pit at Marlee, which, from their superior size and palmed 

 form, were supposed to be the horns of the Elk-deer ; and 

 he refers to a donation to the Royal Society of Edinburgh 

 "by the Hon. Lord Dunsinnan, of a painting in oils of the 

 head and horns of an Elk found in a marl-pit, Forfarshire," 

 and adds : " Whether these two examples from marl-beds 

 should be referred to the Fallow-deer, or the Irish Elk, 

 may admit of some doubt, though it is probable that they 

 belong to the former." The superior size of the palmed 

 antlers militates against their reference to the ordinary 

 Fallow-deer ; and the observation of the deeply-grooved 

 metacarpal or metatarsal bones, from the same marl deposit, 

 renders it desirable to compare the specimens and the oil- 

 painting with the large palmed varieties of the antlers of 

 the Rein-deer figured by Cuvier in the fourth volume of the 

 ' Ossemens Fossiles,' 4to. 1823, pl v iv. figs. 11, 18, and 16. 



CERVUS DAMA. Fallow-deer. 



OP this species as an aboriginal one, coeval with the 

 Red-deer and Megaceros in Great Britain, I have no de- 

 cisive evidence from actual observation of characteristic 

 fossil or semifossil remains. The portions of palmated 

 antlers and teeth from the peat-moss at Newbury, noticed 



* ' History of British Animals,' 8vo., 1828, p. 26. 



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