88 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



somewhat larger ; but the third or foremost of the palm is 

 constantly the largest, measuring from eighteen to twenty- 

 three inches; then follows another scarcely inferior, and 

 behind that others, often divided into two processes. On 

 the posterior edge are one or two spillers, but we have not 

 met with a specimen, bearing more than ten branches on 

 each horn: heads, horns and fragments of this species 

 have been found also in England, in Silesia, on the Rhine, 

 in Brunswick, Cleves, France, and Lombardy. As these 

 remains are found almost invariably in recent formations 

 and vegetable moulds, it would be more unreasonable to 

 deny than give our assent to the opinion of Professor Gold- 

 fuss, that the destruction of this species may be of more re- 

 cent date than is commonly supposed*. His inference rests 

 principally upon the fact of a head being discovered in 

 1800, on the borders of the Iss, near Emmerich in a sandy 

 soil, at a place where urns and stone axes were also found. 

 In Ireland the same peat mosses or bogs which contain 

 these horns have likewise produced implements of human 

 manufacture ; but the learned professor, searching in the 

 earliest records of his country, points to a verse in the very 

 ancient and celebrated poem of the Niebelungcn, where, in 

 the description of a hunting match, the hero Sifrid slays, 

 according to the earliest, or St. Gall manuscript, the Urus, 

 the Bison, the Elk, and a fourth animal, a fierce Schelch. 

 This name which commentators without being able to point 

 out in any other work a single indication, had referred to 

 the Stag, the professor supposes to mean this species. As 

 the ancient Teutonic names of the Elk were what they now 

 are, Elend and Elk, and as the Elk and Stag are actually 

 named in the verse, another beast of the chase with a name 

 as closely allied to the former, as its bulk and horns ac- 

 tually assimilate with it also, may not unfairly be assumed 



* The paper of Mr. Weaver in the Phil. Trans, of this year 

 draws similar conclusions. 



