ORDER RUMINANTIA. 87 



been spread by a people into countries where they never 

 penetrated, and still more so if they had bestowed a name, 

 questionable by their own indications yet received by bar- 

 barians, who in no other similar circumstance have conde- 

 scended to borrow from their language. 



As an article of food, their venison, at least in England, 

 is far superior to that of other Deer ; beside the spotted 

 variety, there is another of a dark-brown colour, the Fawns 

 of which have not even the spots, so common to most 

 others. It is reported to be hardier and to have been in- 

 troduced into England by King James the First, from 

 Norway. In the British parks, these varieties have mixed, 

 and a great diversity of shades and colours, with and with- 

 out spots, have ensued, among which the white, resulting 

 from albinism, are not uncommon. 



The Fossil Elk. (Cervus Giganteus, Cuv. ; Cervus Hi- 

 bernus, Desm.j The bones of this extinct species and par- 

 ticularly those which form the head, determine its place in 

 systematic arrangement in the group of Fallow-deer, and 

 not in that of Elks. The horns often dug out of the peat 

 mosses of Ireland, consist of a round beam, diverging more 

 or less from the head, with proper brow and bezantlers, the 

 extremity alone being flattened into an immense palm, fur- 

 nished on both the anterior and posterior borders with long 

 snags. They diverge sometimes nearly in a right angle 

 from the head, spreading over a direct line of from eight to 

 ten feet, and even more. Since a skeleton, nearly complete, 

 and now in the Museum of Edinburgh, was discovered in a 

 bed of marie in the Isle of Man, its affinity to the Cervi of the 

 Fallow-deer group has been fully established, and the height 

 of the animal, independent of its enormous horns, admit- 

 ting the skeleton to be of an adult, is proved to be inferior, 

 or at most only equal to the Elk. The horns have invaria- 

 bly a brow antler close to the burr, and bending over the 

 face, sometimes bifurcated; beyond this is the bezantler 



