CONGENERS. 335 



rectly classifying tliem, while I would make few mistakes in 

 classifjnng those of the present day. 



The finest collection of both together which I have ever seen 

 was in Berlin, where they were kept for sale, and where I had 

 an excellent opportunity of studying them, to which I have al- 

 ready referred in the chapter on antlers. Those from Northern 

 Europe were easily distinguished from those from America, but 

 those from Silesia, Bohemia, and Hungaiy were much larger, and 

 in all things much more like those from the American Elk, and 

 in many of the specimens I was at a loss to declare on which 

 continent they grew. 



Judging from the antlers alone, upon all the evidence I have 

 been able to accumulate, I could hardly hesitate to say that the 

 Stag of Europe is a degenerate descendant of the same parents to 

 which our Elk owe their origin, and that this degeneracy is most 

 marked in those of the most northern countries. I have else- 

 where remarked that our own Elk grow larger in the southern 

 ranges, than in the northern, while the reverse is the case with 

 most if not all of the other species of the famil3\ 



Another exceptional feature as connected with the antler, may 

 not be without significance. In no case does the Wapiti or 

 American Elk shed its antlers in the winter, but always carries 

 them till spring opens, if the animal be in health. All the other 

 members of the family drop their antlers at irregular intervals, 

 from November till spring, excej^t the female caribou, as is more 

 fully explained in the article on the antlers. In this very re- 

 markable habit the Red Deer corresponds with our Elk. On this 

 point Professor William Peters of Berlin writes me : " Concern- 

 ing the shedding of the horns of our Cervus elaphiis, I can give 

 you for Germany the following data : generally, they drop the 

 horns in March ; very strong stags sometimes already in Feb- 

 ruary, and younger ones carry them often till the month of May." 

 This is a confirmation of the information which I have received 

 in answer to all the inquiries I had made in Europe of those 

 whose opportunities enabled them to observe the occurrence and 

 whose observations would be considered valuable. Of the Red 

 Deer, Cuvier says : " The antlers are shed in spring, the old ones 

 losing them first." How exactly this corresponds with the 

 habit of our Elk may be seen by turning to what is said of them 

 in the article on the antlei-s. The absence of the tarsal gland in 

 both, which is entirely exceptional in this country, and the exact 

 similitude of the metatarsal gland in all its minute characteristics. 



