1890.] SAIGA ANTELOPE FROM PLEISTOCENE DEPOSITS. 615 



definite information on the subject. During excavations lately made 

 in Orleans Road, Twickenham, the workmen met witli the fine 

 example of the frontlet and horn-cores of an adult male Saiga ta- 

 tnrica now exhibited to the Society. The specimen was secured by 

 Dr. Leeson, who kindly forwarded it to the present writer for 

 determination ; and the fragment is fortunately so characteristic, that 

 the genus and species to which it pertains are at once apparent beyond 

 all doubt. 



With regard to the circumstances of the discovery, Dr. Leeson 

 remarks that the spot in Orleans Road is about | mile distant from 

 the N. bank of the Thames, and perhaps not more tljan six feet 

 above high-water mark. The section exposed consists of two feet 

 of loam and other surface material, resting upon about ten feet of 

 gravel and sand in alternating layers, this being immediately under- 

 lain by the London Clay. The specimen was met with in one of the 

 sandy layers about seven feet from the surface. No associated bones 

 were found, and Dr. Leeson's researches have not led to the dis- 

 covery of any other mammalian remains in the corresponding beds 

 in other parts of the neighbourhood. The nature of the section, 

 however, proves conclusively that the fossil is of Pleistocene age. 



The specimen, which is shown, of one half the natural size, in the 

 accompanying drawing (see p. 614), exhibits the fused parietals, 

 the frontals, and the greater part of the horn-cores. The cranial roof 

 agrees preciselv with that of a recent skull, as described in Dr. Murie's 

 memoir ' ; and the horn-cores, which are preserved for a length of 

 0"1, are strongly marked with longitudinal ridges and grooves. Tn 

 every respect, indeed, except in the comparatively erect position of 

 the horns, the fossil agrees with the recent skull of a male in the 

 British Museum (no. 613 c?), obtained from Sarepta, even the various 

 measurements in the two cases being almost identical. Whether the 

 less divergent character of the horns in the British Pleistocene type 

 be a racial difference, or wliether the same feature be sometimes 

 observed as a merely individual peculiarity in the existing Saiga, 

 cannot be determined from the lack of specimens for comparison. 

 It suffices to add, that a frontal figured by Gaudry {op. cit.), from 

 the Pleistocene of France, agrees in the character just mentioned 

 with the English specimen. 



As already remarked, the remains of the Saiga are widely distri- 

 buted in the French cavern-deposits ; and M. Dupont has recorded 

 evidence of its former range over Belgium'. Being thus well 

 known in the West, it is somewhat remarkable that no remains of 

 the animal have hitherto been definitely described from the wide 

 areas of Germany and Russian Poland intervening between the 

 present limit of its range and its former extension. 



Prof. x\. Nehring, of Berlin, however, is of opinion^ that a careful 

 study of existing collections of Pleistocene bones from the German 



1 P. Z. S. 1870, p. 459. 



^ E. Dupout, ' L'Homtne pendant les ^ges de la Pierre daus les environs de 

 Dinant sur Meuse,' ed. 2, p. 187. 



^ 'Timdren und Steppen' (1890), p. 187. 



