tij 



TIIK ALOINE DEER OF THE OLD AND NEW WORLDS. 03 



the Curpftthitiiis. Tlic iiamo in still preserved in the 

 moileni Harz aiul Erz." Gronovius Htutes that the 

 Uernian -word was HirtsenwaUl, or fcnvst of stags. In 

 un old tianshition of the Commentaries I find the word 

 "alces" rendered "a kind of wild asses," and really a 

 l)etter term could iiardly \m ap[)lied, had the writer, 

 unacquainted with the animal, caught a paivsing glimpse 

 of an elk, especially of a young one without horns. But 

 it is evident that Cicsar alludes to a large speeies of deer, 

 and, althougli he compares them to goats (it is nearly 

 certain that the original word was "eapreis," "caprea" 

 hi'ing a kind of wild goat or roel)Uck), and received from 

 his informants the stoiy of their being jointlcss — an 

 attribute, in those days of popular errors jind super- 

 stitions, ascriljed to other animals as well — the very fact 

 of their being hunted in the mannt'r described, by 

 weakenino; trees, so that the animal leaning ai::ainst them 

 would l)reak them down, involving his own fall, proves 

 that the alec was a creature of ponderous bulk. 



The descriptive paragraph alluded to contains one of 

 the fallacies which have always been attached to the 

 natural history of the elk, ancient and modern ; and, 

 even now-a-days the singular appearance of the animal 

 attempting to browse on a low shrub close to the ground, 

 his legs not bent at the joint, but straddling stifHy as he 

 endeavours to cull the morsel with his long, prehensile 

 upper lip, might imi I; to the ignorant observer the idea 

 that the stilt-like legs were jointlcss. The fabrication of 

 their being hunted in the way described was, of course, 

 based on the popular error as to the formation of their 

 limbs. *' Milt ilcBij lie sunt cornibus" may imply that 

 Cresar, or more likely some of his men, had either seen a 



