280 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



that even its popular designation ^^auerochs" was transferred to the 

 Lithuanian bison. ^^ The designations of these two types are therefore 

 very confusing and are distinguished by Kobelt as follows : 



Urus (Pliny), wild, ox, urocbs. ciiierocbs (Old Ger- 



man), tur (Polish), urstier z:^ Bos primigenius 



Bonasus (Aristotle) wisent or wisont, subr (Polish), auer- 



ochs (of recent date) =zBos prisciis 



The relations of the wild cattle of Asia to domestication will be con- 

 sidered on a later page. 



Megaceros giganfeus. — During the first half of the Pleistocene this 

 noble animal was widely distributed in Ireland^ England^ Scotland, the 

 Isle of Man, France, Denmark, Germany, Austria, northern Italy and 

 parts of Eurasia even into Siberia. The famous Megaceros beds of Ire- 

 land are freshwater clays which frequently underly the peat bogs. As 

 observed by Williams these are "boulder-clays^^ which were redistributed 

 as lake sediments and accumulated under genial or temperate climatic 

 conditions like the present. Owing to the similarity in the palmation 

 of its antlers the giant deer has been generally (Lydekker, Weber, 

 Trouessart) placed within or very close to the subgenus Dam a, the 

 fallow deer; but Lonnberg^^ regards the likeness between the giant deer 

 and fallow deer as convergence and considers that the giant deer is more 

 closely related phylogenetically to the reindeer, but it is nevertheless so 

 specialized as to hold an independent place in the system of Cervidse. 

 The Megaceros last appears in early Postglacial times associated with 

 the Aurignacean culture in Germany; it is not recorded (Schmidt) with 

 the succeeding Solutrean or Magdalenian culture. It thus became ex- 

 tinct before the close of the Palaeolithic. 



Elaphine or Red Deer.^^ — Sir Victor Buck held that the Cervidac orig- 

 inated in Asia and from there spread westward into Europe or eastward 

 into America. The Asiatic origin of the red deer race has since been 

 ably maintained by Koppen. A very large race of late Pleistocene times 

 has been compared by N"ehring with the C. canadensis of Korth America. 



Reindeer. — The reindeer of Pleistocene times are generally referred to 

 the Barren Ground or Tundra type. In this type, which is typified by 

 the existing Old World reindeer (R. tarandus, R. spitzhergensis) and by 

 the American arctic forms (R. arcUcns, R. Grosnlandicus, R. granti, R. 



^''^ POHLiG, H. : Eiszeit iind Urgeschichte des Menschen. p. 181. Ijeipzig, 1907. 

 RuTiMEYER, L. : "Die Fauna der Pfahlbauten der Schweiz." Neue Denkschr. schweiz. 

 Ges. gesam. Naturwiss., Vol. xix, pp. 68-112. Zurich, 1862. 



Kobelt, W, : Die Verbreitung der Tierwelt. 8vo. Leipzig, 1902. 

 "^ LoNXBERG, E. : "Which is the Taxonomic Position of the Irish Giant Deer and Allied 

 Races?" Ark. Zool., Vol. 3, No. 14, pp. 1-8. Upsala, 1906. 



«9 SCHARFF. R. P.: The History of the European Fauna, pp. 246-251. London. 1899. 



