1868.] BOYD DAWKINS FOSSIL DEER FROM CLACTON. 515 



the Fallow-deer, and that it is presented also by a far more an- 

 cient cervine species from the Crag of Norwich. 



5. Probable Aije of the Freshwater Strata at Clacton. — The affi- 

 nities of Cervus Brownl with the Fallow-deer are so strong that, 

 with the exception of the development of the third anterior tyne, 

 the antlers are identical in size and form. The latter, however, has 

 never been proved to occur in the fossil state in Northern or Central 

 Europe, but probably owes its introduction into France, Germany, 

 and Britain to the fostering care of man, at a comparatively modern 

 period. It has, indeed, been assumed by Dr. Fleming * that the 

 animal is indigenous to Scotland ; but his assumption is based on an 

 equivocal passage of Lesley, that has no bearing on the point, 

 while Professor Owen f leaves the question altogether open, very 

 much as he found it. In Britain the most ancient traces of its ex- 

 istence are to be found in the Roman refuse-heaps ; and therefore it 

 is highly probable that its introduction, like that of the buffalo into 

 Italy, was owing to the Eomans. In Germany the animal has been 

 quoted by Dr. Riitimeyer :j: as occurring in the Pfahlbauten ; but since 

 the publication of his fauna he has found reasons for modifying his 

 opinion. Its true habitat is the shores of the Mediterranean and 

 the Taurus district to the north of Syria §. In Spain, Sardinia, 

 and Algiers, it rivals the Red-deer in size. It must therefore be 

 looked upon as an animal not indigenous in Central or Northern 

 Europe, but as a dweller, in its natural state, in the hot climate of 

 the south. If we assume, legitimately as it seems to me, that 

 Cervus Browni lived under somewhat similar conditions to those 

 under which the wild Fallow- deer now lives, the climate of Britain, 

 during the time that the remains of animals were being swept down 

 by an ancient river to be deposited at Clacton, must have been much 

 warmer than it is at the present day, — a condition that would insu- 

 late the deposits from all those of Postglacial age that were formed 

 under a lower temperature than that now obtaining in Northern 

 France or in Britain. The animals found at Clacton consist of Felis 

 spelcea, Bison or Urus, Cervus elaphus, Cervus megaceros, Cervus 

 Browni, Equiis, Rhinoceros leptorhinus (Owen) || , and Elephas antiquus, 

 of which the first six are peculiar to the Pleistocene deposits, while 

 the last two are found also in the Pliocenes of France and Italy. One 

 important group of mammals characteristic of Postglacial strata is 



* British Animals (1828), p. 26. 

 t Brit. Fos. Mam. pp. 483, 484. 



I Fauna der Pfahlbauten der Schweiz, 4to, Basel, p. 62. M. Lart^t informs 

 me, in a letter, that now Prof. Riitimeyer believes that the Fallow-deer has not 

 yet been proved to occur among the animals found in the Swiss lakes. 



§ Blasius, op. cit. p. 455. 



II The identity of the British species described by Prof. Owen (1846) under 

 the name of B. leptorhinus, Cuvier, by the author of this essay under the name 

 of R. leptorhinus, Owen, in 1867, and by Dr. Falconer, in the essay published 

 in the Palseontological Memoirs, in 1868, as R. hemit<x,chus, with the R. Merkii 

 of Dr. Kaup, determined in 1861, is considered by M. Lartet beyond all doubt. 

 (" Note sur deux tetes de Carnassiers Fossiles et sur quelques debris de Rhinoceros 

 provenant des decouvertes faites par M. Bourguignat dans les cavernes du Midi 

 dela France," Annales des Sciences Naturelles, serie 5. tome viii. pp. 156 & 193.) 



