Prof. Owen — Discovery of the Elk near London. 389 

 II. — Note on the occurrence of Eemains of the Elk (Alces 



PALMATVS) IN BRITISH POST-TBRTIARY DEPOSITS. 

 By Professor Owen, F.R.S. 



AT the date of publication of my "British Fossil Mammals" 

 (1846) I had not obtained satisfactory evidence of the Elk as 

 one of them. But shortly after that period the Tyne-side Naturalists 

 recorded in their instructive ' Transactions ' the discovery of a fine 

 antler of an Elk (' Alces palmatus fossilis ' of the 'Club ') in a Peat- 

 bog, near the North Tyne Eiver, Northumberland. I am now able 

 to add to that notice evidence of the extension of the localities of 

 true Elk-remains as far south as Walthamstow, Essex. The exca- 

 vations of the East London Waterworks, now in progress, have ex- 

 posed sections of an old bed of the Eiver Lea, near Walthamstow. 

 In this bed, at from five to eight feet in depth, have been obtained 

 remains of Bos longifrons, Capra hirciis, with remarkably fine horn- 

 cores, part of an antler, two feet eight inches long, of a Eeindeer 

 (G. tarandus), and in another kind of deposit, as evidenced by the 

 darker colour of the bones, and a thin partial coating of limy matter, 

 were obtained the humerus, antibrachium, and metacarpus of an 

 Elk, closely corresponding with those of the existing Scandinavian 

 species ( Cervus Alces, Linn. ; Alces palmatus ; Auct., and Alces 

 EuropcBus, Hamilton Smith). ^ 



The length of the humerus is 1 foot 3 inches : the least circum- 

 ference of the shaft, 4 inches 10 lines ; the length of the anti- 

 brachium is 1 foot 7 inches ; its least circumference, 5 inches 3 lines. 

 The ulna is anchylosed to the radius along great part of its distal half. 

 The metacarpus is 1 foot 9 lines in length, and 4 inches in circumfer- 

 ence. The characters of these bones in the peculiarly long-legged 

 kind of deer called ' Elk ' or ' Moose' differentiate them readily and 

 strongly from those of the Bovines, of the Megaceros, and of the Wapiti 

 or other large round-antlered deer. They are, perhaps, more satis- 

 factory evidences of Alces than portions of antler. Professor Gervais, 

 e.g., writes doubtfully, on such grounds, in regard to ' Cervus alces ' 

 as a French fossil : — " Cette espece — parait avoir laisse des debris 

 fossiles en France dans les terrains diluviens. M. de Christol y a 

 rapporte quelques portions de bois extraites des sables diluviens des 

 Eiege, pres Pezenas, que nous attribuerons a notre Cervus mar- 

 tialis." (Paleontologie Frangaise, 4to. p. 80). 



We owe to Julius Caesar the valuable record of the existence of 

 both the Eeindeer (Bos-cervus) and the Elk {Alces) in the Black 

 Forest and conterminous part of Germany at the period of his cam- 

 paign in that coimtry and in Gaul. (De Bello Gallico, Lib. vi, cap. 

 xxvi. p. 320. Ed. Ludg. Bat. 1737). 



^ I have not been able to discern any distinctive character of specific value between 

 the N, American and Scandinavian Elks. 



