366 MAMMALIA. 



though there is sometimes also a further bifurcation of the apex. 

 The burr is usually present, but in some small specimens it is 

 not seen, and these are claimed as referable to very young 

 individuals. Dicroceros occurs in the Middle Miocene of 

 France, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria; _D. furcatus from 

 Steinheim, Wiirtemberg, being the best-known form. An 

 American genus with equally simple and small, though very 

 variable antlers, is Cosoryx, known by the nearly complete 

 skeleton from the Upper Miocene (Loup Fork Formation) of 

 Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. Some slightly 

 more complicated antlers, relatively longer and with two, three, 

 or four tynes, from the Lower Pliocene of France and Greece, 

 are provisionally placed with the existing roe-deer in the genus 

 Capreolus (fig. 207 B). The true roe-deer itself (Capreolus 

 caprea) seems to have wandered over the greater part of 

 Europe in Pleistocene times ; and in Britain its remains are 

 found in superficial deposits of various ages from the Cromer 

 Forest Bed upwards. The true Cervus seems to occur first 

 in the Upper Pliocene of Europe (fig. -207 c), and there is 

 reason to believe that it acquired the largest and most com- 

 plicated antlers towards the close of this period. Cervus 

 sedgwicki, from the Upper Pliocene of the valley of the Arno 

 in northern Italy and from the Cromer Forest Bed, may be 

 specially cited as a remarkable example of specialization in the 

 antlers. Other striking developments, such as G. verticornis 

 and C. savini, are also represented by fragments in the Cromer 

 Forest Bed. The common stag or red deer (C. elaphus) also 

 seems to have attained a larger size during the Pleistocene 

 period than at the present day in western Europe, some 

 fragments of antlers found in the caves of Britain and the 

 adjoining continent (the so-called Strongyloceros spelceus) 

 rivalling those of the existing North American Wapiti in size. 

 The stag is clearly indigenous to the British Isles, but the 

 common fallow deer (C. dama) of the English parks seems 

 to have been introduced by the Romans ; although C. browni 

 and C. falconeri, from the Cromer Forest Bed and the Pliocene 

 Crags, seem to have been closely alliecf species. 



Perhaps the most remarkable of all the recently extinct 



