90 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Prof. Gaudry, myself, and others for many years. It is, of course, 
easy for anyone to classify the flat antler as belonging to one species 
and the round to another; but the value of the determination de- 
pends upon the number of species living at the same time in the 
same place, possessed respectively of round and flattened antlers. 
In the pleistocene and prehistoric ages, there were four animals 
which had portions of their antlers flattened—the Reindeer, Irish 
Elk, true Elk, and Stag—to which, according to Dr. Jeitteles, must 
be added the Fallow Deer. In this particular case it is not only 
assumed that the flat-antler fragments belong to the last of these 
animals, but even the uncertain testimony of various authors, who 
had not critically examined the remains, which they record, in 
relation to the other species, is taken to prove the range of the 
Fallow Deer as far north as Denmark. The mere printed reference 
to the Fallow Deer is accepted as evidence, without, save in two 
cases, being verified by personal examination. The results of such 
a method of inquiry seem to me to demand most careful criticism. 
The alleged cases of the discovery of Fallow Deer in Central 
and Northern Europe are as follows:—In Switzerland, it is stated 
to have been identified by Dr. Riitimeyer among the animals which 
had been used for food by the dwellers in the Lake villages; 
“although,” he writes, “incontrovertible evidence of the spon- 
taneous existence of this deer north of the Alps remains still to be 
obtained.” In a list of the Swiss Mammalia which Dr. Riitimeyer 
was kind enough to prepare for me in 1873, the animal is altogether 
omitted from the pleistocene and prehistoric fauna. Thus, in the 
opinion of this high authority, it was not living in Switzerland in 
those early days. The animal is stated also (on the authority of 
Jiiger in 1850) to have been found abundantly in “the caverns and 
turbaries as well as in the diluvial freshwater chalk of Wurtemburg.” 
To this I would oppose the opinion of my friend Prof. Oscar Fraas, 
of Stuttgardt, from whose list of animals (sent to me in 1872) the 
Fallow Deer is conspicuous by its absence. The Reindeer is 
abundant in the caves of that region, and to it the flattened frag- 
ments of antlers may probably be referred. 
To pass over the reputed discovery of the animal “in an old 
place of sacrifice” near Schlieben, in 1828, in which the discoverer 
himself remarks that “the subject requires further investigation,” 
there only remain three other sets of fragments to be examined in 
Germany. First, those at Olmiitz, which Dr. Riitimeyer considered 
