224 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Fcb. 20, 



Family Cervidce. 



In the miocenc strata near Darmstadt the remains of a pecuHar form 

 of small Deer, with pedtiiiculated antlers like those of the Muntjac, 

 but with tlie typical number of molars, 7 — 7, at least in the upper 

 jaw, have been found, on which remains Prof. Kaup has founded his 

 genus Dorcatherium. With this were associated other and somewhat 

 larger species of Deer, represented by more or less mutilated antlers, 

 which Prof. Kaup refers to his species Cervus dicranocerus (tab. 24. 

 figs. 3, 3 e, op, cit.). In this species the beam of the antler rises 

 from one to two inches above the burr without sending off any brow- 

 snag, but at that distance it sends obliquely forward a branch so large, 

 that the beam seems here to bifurcate, the anterior division being, 

 however, rather the smallest and shortest. 



I have received the bases of similar antlers, which had been shed, 

 from different Red-crag pits of Suffolk, some corresponding in size 

 with, others larger than, the largest of the specimens figured by 

 Kaup*; none of these specimens, however, have either branch of the 

 beam entire. 



Dicranoceros (Subgeneric division of Cervus). 



The specimen (fig. 14) from a crag- pit near Sutton, Suffolk, is 

 the base of a shed antler of a species of Deer, identical with, or nearly 

 allied to — certainly belonging to the same section in the Deer tribe as — 

 the Ce7'vus dicranocerus of Kaup. The absorbed basal surface is 

 slightly convex, subcircular, 1 inch in long diameter; the base of the 

 antler extends from 2 to 3 lines beyond it : in one half of the circum- 

 ference, the base is continued with a mere convex bend into the ascend- 

 ing beam ; in the other half it projects outward, at first slightly, 

 then more prominently, forming a ridge or *' burr," which extends 



4 lines from the margin of the absorbed surface. The proportion 

 of the absorbed, and formerly adhering, part of the base to the non- 

 adherent part of the base indicates that the antler was supported by 

 a persistent bony process of the frontal, or by a pedicle, as in the 

 Cervus anocerus, Kaup (probably identical with the Dorcatherium^ 

 Kaup), and in the existing Muntjac. The beam is 2 inches in length 

 before it divides ; and it is more extensively and deeply excavated on 

 one side (the excavation widening to the division) than on the other. 

 The antler is marked by longitudinal grooves and a few low ridges, 

 but is equally devoid, with the Darmstadt specimens, of any of the 

 tubercles which characterize the antlers of the Roe. The length 

 from the base to the broken end of the main branch is 3 inches 

 3 lines ; the circumference of the beam above the base is 3 inches 



5 lines. 



From the same Red-crag pit, I have received a left lower true 

 molar, fig. 1 5, with proportions of the lobes and their crescents more 

 resembling those of Cervus than of other genera of Ruminantia, — in 

 the greater angular production e.g. of the outer crescents, e, e, and the 

 greater proportion of dentine between the apex of the triangle and 



* Kaup, Description d'Ossemcns Fossiles cle Mammifcrcs de Darmstadt, 4to 

 1839, tab. 24. figs. 3, 3 c. 



