CONGENERS. 3385 
rectly classifying them, while I would make few mistakes in 
classifying 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 Hungary 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 family. 
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, except 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 elaphus, 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 antlers. 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, 
