1. 1 



52 FOREST LIFE IN ACADIE. 



ns.signiiljlo to red or rciiidctu*, a bison, and an .elk. " If," 

 Hays tlio author, "nn Mr. Dawkins considur.s, tlicsc teeth 

 are referable to thoHC now exeb lively nortlieru (iuadiiipeda, 

 we have evidence of tlic reindeer and elk ]iavin«( l)een 

 the food of man in the Lebanon not long before thi; 

 historie period ; for there is no nceesHity to put back to 

 any date of immeasurable antiquity tho deposition of 



, 1 these remains in a limestone cavern. And," he adds, 



with sicjnitieant reference to the great extension of the 

 ancient zoological province of which we arc speaking, 

 *' there is notiiing more extra.ordinary in this occurrence 



]| than in the discoveiy of the bones of the tailless hare of 



Siberia in the breccias of Sardinia and Corsica." 



The first allusion to the elk in the pages of history is 

 made by Cresar in the sixth book " Dc Bello Callico" — 

 "sunt item quw appeUantur Alecs," etc. etc., a descrip- 

 tion of an animal inhabiting the great Hercynian forest 

 of ancient Germany, in common with some other remark- 

 able fera3, also mentioned, which can refer to no other, 

 the name being evidently Latinised from the old Teutonic 

 cognomen of elg, elch, or aelg, whence also our own term 

 elk. He s|iaks of the forest as commencing near the 

 territories of the Helvetii, and extending eastward along 

 the Danube to the country inhabited by the Dacians. 

 " Under this general name," says Dr. Smith, *' Ctesar 

 appears to have included all the mountains and forests 

 in the south and centre of Germany, the Black Forest, 

 Odenwald, Thuringenwald, the Hartz, the Erzgebirge, the 

 lliesengebirge, etc., etc. As the Romans became better 

 acquainted with Germany, the name was confined to 

 narrower limits. Pliny and Tacitus use it to indicate 

 the rana:e of mountains between the Thiiringjcnwald and 



111 



t 



I" 



■(IH 





