1877. | ANATOMY OF THE RUMINANTS. 13 
to bring before the Society on a future occasion, when my material 
has become more abundant. 
In all Old-World Cervidz examined by me, with the exception of 
the Reindeer, the vomer is not so much ossified as to divide the pos- 
terior osseous nares into two distinct orifices, whilst in Rangifer 
tarandus and all the New-World Deer, excepting Alces machlis and 
Cervus canadensis, it isso. I have seen most of the skulls of Deer 
which are to be found in the superb osteological collection of the 
British Museum ; and it is upon the study of them that this genera- 
lization is based. In the following species the vomer is completely 
ossified behind, so as to separate off the two posterior nares in the 
macerated skull: 




Cervus pudu. Cervus leucotis. 
campestris, antisiensis. 
columbianus. virginianus. 
Jeucurus. —— mexicanus. 

Neither in Alces machlis nor in Cervus canadensis is the vomer so 
extended posteriorly. The condition described is represented in fig. 
24 which is from the skull of Cervus virginianus. 

Fig. 24. Base of the skull of Cervus virginianus, from below. 
In his ‘ Catalogue of Ruminant Animals in the British Museum,’ 
Dr. Gray lays considerable stress upon the degree of development of 
the nasal processes of the premaxillary bones, whether or not they 
meet the nasals. In Rangifer tarandus they do not do so, the gap 
