72 



NATURE 



{Nov. 26, 1874 



found, along with the implements and vessels of the old 

 Bronze period, a piece of an antler, which, from its flat- 

 tened form and entire want of snags and branches, I 

 concluded at once must be referred to the Fallow Deer. 

 Careful comparison of it with the antlers of the Red 

 Deer, Reindeer, Moose, and Irish Elk,in several museums, 

 as also in rich private collections, confirmed me in this 

 belief. Experienced students of the Cervid;^ agreed 

 with me, although certainly a still more weighty autho- 

 rity — Herr Prof. Riitimeyer, of Basel— indicated the possi- 

 bility of the fragment from Olmiitz having belonged to a 

 Red Deer. 



In the third article of his " Recherches snr les ossemens 

 fossiles," Cuvier has already mentioned the existence of 

 fossil Fallow Deer. In page 191 (of the 8vo. edition of 

 1S36) he speaks of '' bois assez semblables a ceux du 

 Daim, mais d'une tres grande taille trouves dans la valine 

 de la Somme et en AUemagne." On Plate 167 (Figs, 

 igrt and 19/') are figured two pieces of antlers from 

 Abbeville, of which 19 b certainly belongs to Cfivus 

 dama. Moreover, Cuvier tells of a drawing sent to him 

 by Autenreith (of which he gives a copy, PI. 168, Fig. 1 1), 

 "d'un crane et d'un merrain y adherent, deposes au 

 cabinet de Stuttgardt ; pieces que ce savant rapportait au 

 cerf h bois gigantesques, mais qui me paraissent plut6t 

 se devoir rapporter k le Daim, i cause de la longueur de la 

 partie cylindrique." 



Subsequently similar remains of antlers were discovered 

 at Gergovia, near Clermont, in the department of Puy- 

 de-D6me, and at Polignac, near Le Puy, in the depart- 

 ment of Haute-Loire. These are spoken of by Robert 

 under the name Ce>-vits dama poligiiaciis, by i'omel as 

 Cervits somonoisis and C. Robcrti, and by Gervais (Zool. 

 et Pal. Franc, ed. 2, Paris 1859, p. 145) under the term 

 Cervus somo7U'nsis, taken from Desmarest. 



Gervais says of them that they are " des bois de Daims 

 qui indiquent une espece ou varieie bien plus grande que 

 celle dont il a etc question ci-dessus " (i.e. Ccrviis dama), 

 and that these horns are " d'un tiers au moins plus grand 

 que ceux du Daim ordinaire." 



Georg Jager, in his '' ReWew of the Fossil Mammals of 

 Wurtemberg, " * mentions numerous discoveries of the 

 remains of Fallow Deer in the caverns and turbaries, as 

 also m the diluvial fresh-water chalk of Wurtemberg. 

 Moreover, Jager states that in the Museum of Mannheim 

 there is not only a skull of Bos priinigcniiis^ but also 

 one ai Bos prisciis and of its ally Bos prisco affiuts, along 

 with a skull of Cervus dama oijrantcus, Irom the dihivium 

 of the neifjhbourhood of Mannheim. 



In the Museum of Linz, in Upper Austria, are displayed 

 numerous remains of animals from the diluvium of the 

 neighbourhood of Wels, which were dug up at Buchberg, 

 near Wels, when the Elizabeth Railway was made. Be- 

 sides a fragment of antler of a Red Deer, a molar of Ursus 

 arctos (not U. spclaus), a fine molar oi EUp/ias primi- 

 ^f/u'its, a.nd teeth of the horse, there is in the Linz Museum, 

 labelled as obtained from the railway-cutting, a fine 

 large fragment of an antler which must tiave belonged to 

 the Fallow Deer. Like the fragment of the Red Deer's 

 antler from the same locality, it is whitened and has a 

 calcined appearance. I examined this interesting specimen 

 several times in 1870 and 1873, and have to ttiank Herr 

 Kaiserl. Rath Ehrlich, the custos of the museum, for a 

 photograph of it. 



In October I S73 I examined personally the formation 

 at Buchberg, and convinced myself of its being truly 

 diluvium. In many places it had been dug into deeply 

 for gravel. The horns and teeth in the museum of Linz 

 were apparently obtained from one of these pits in the 

 diluvium, but lay in the marly layer which is found under 

 the gravel. 



Fragments of antlers undoubtedly belonging to the 



* Nov. Act. Acad., Cics. Leop. Car. xxii., pars post. 1850, pp 207, 893, 

 897, 899, 907. 



Fallow Deer were discovered in the autumn uf 1828 by 

 Dr. Fr. Aug. Wagner in the ash-heap of an old place of 

 sacrifice between the town of Schlieben and the village of 

 Malitzschkendorf, in the circle of Schweinitz in Saxony, 

 in great abundance, along with those of the elk, ox, roe, 

 and sheep.* Dr. Wagner, a physician in practice in 

 Schlieben, made his researches with scientific precision, 

 and determined the remains of the animals with care and 

 exactness, as will be evident from his book, at the bom- 

 bastic title of which one must not be alarmed. In the 

 determination of the specimens of antlers he was assisted 

 by the distinguished zoologist Prof. Nitzsch, of HaUe. 

 The specimen of elk's antler is figured (Tab. v. Figs. 3, 4, 

 5), but unfortunately none of those of the Fallow Deer. 

 Besides remains of plants and animals, this sacrificial 

 heap supplied bones of various sorts. As regards the 

 Fallow Deer, Wagner writes (p. 34) : " At various times in 

 the excavation of the temple were found fragments of 

 antlers which apparently belonged to the Fallow Deer. 

 But as an entire specimen was never put together, nor 

 even such fragments as could make the fact incontro- 

 vertible, it remains uncertain whether this species was I 

 sacrificed along with Cci-viis alas, and the subject requires 

 further investigation." 



Of a Cervus fossilis dama affinis, A\&x. v. Nordmann 

 figures five teeth in his '■ Palsontologie budrusslands."t 

 But the Fallow Deer was found even further north in the 

 period of the diluvium and in later prehistoric times. 

 For example, in 1871, within the city of Hamburg, and 

 subsequently from one of the arms of the Elbe, there 

 were disinterred numerous upper and lower jaws and frag 

 ments which differed only in size from those of the living 

 Cervus dama, and the teeth of which were nearly identical. 

 These were associated with remains of the Auerox and 

 another large Bos, and with bones of the horse, pig, &c. 

 The remains first discovered lay in compact black peat at 

 a depth of from 20 ft. to 22 ft. among stumps of trees.J 



In the "Bulletins du Congres International d'Arch^- 

 ologie prehistorique a Copenhague, en i86g,"§ Steenstrup 

 has given a short description of the remains of animals 

 from the kitchen-middens and turbaries of Denmark, 

 which were exhibited in the University Museum on thi 

 occasion of the Congress in 1869. Amongst them (pp. 

 160 et seq.) he includes the Fallow Deer, of which the 

 horps and. bones are lound in the upper peat-layers of 

 Denmark. II At the same time he adds, "'Get animal 

 n'est pas originaire du Danemark : il est bien constat^ 

 cju'il a etc introduit dans le pays pendant le moyen age." 



Of the occurrence of remains of the Fallow Deer in 

 England also there is some evidence given, although 

 with a caution as to the necessity of subsequent more 

 accurate examination, by Owen in his " History of British 

 Fossil Animals and Birds" (London, 1846.) From the 

 peat-moor of Newbury were exhumed " portions of pal- 

 mated antlers " and teeth " which accord in size with the 

 Fallow Deer" {op. ctt. p. 483.) Buckland likewise found 

 in the laige cavern of Paviland, on the coast of Glamor- 

 ganshire, along with remains of the mammoth, rhino- 

 ceros, and hyaena, various antlers, " some small, others 

 a little palmated." But Owen rightly remarks that these 

 last may have belonged to the Reindeer just as well as 

 to the Fallow Deer. 1 



♦Detailed accounts of these discoveries are given in Dr. Wagner's 

 " '"Kgypter in Deutscliland oder die germ.^nisch-scJavischen wo nicht rein 

 gernianischen Alterthunier an der Schwartzen Kiiter." Leipzig ; Hartniann, 

 1833- 



t Helsmgfor-s, 1858-60, PI. .wiii. Figs. 4-S. 



X i>r. K. G. Zimmerman in " Neues Jahrb. f. Mineralogie Geologic u. 

 Palajontologie-" Heidelberg, 1S72, helti.p. =6. 



§ Copenhagen, 1872. 



II Le Daim iCen'its dama ) Bois et os&ements provenants des etats 

 superieuisde la Vourte, op. cit. p. 163. 



t Sir Victor Brooke tells me that in his opinion Cerv.ts browttii^ Boyd 

 Dawknis, founded on remains from the fresh-water strata at Clacton, is 

 identical with C. datr.a. Mr. Boyd Dawkins a(.kaowledges that the antlers 

 are almost alike in size and form, and apparently only distinguishes his 

 species because Cervus ,dama " has never been found to occur in a fossil 

 stale in Northern or Central Europe." — P. L. S. 



