EUROPEAN MIOCENE AND PLIOCENE STEATA. 413 



oblique to the axis of the beam, which is traversed by clearly denned 

 deep grooves. These, however, are very generally worn away by the 

 action of water. The beam runs straight away from the burr 

 and is cylindrical, except at the point where the brow-tyne springs 

 immediately above the base. At that point there is a smooth trian- 

 gular area, slightly convex or flat on the superior surface and slightly 

 concave on the inferior, and which is free from the grooves which occur 

 on the rest of the antler. The brow-tyne (B) is slightly oval in section, 

 and gradually tapers to a rounded point, which is broken away in all 

 the specimens which have passed through my hands ; it forms an 

 acute angle with the beam, as in Axis and Husa, and is very much 

 smaller in every dimension. The beam in figs. 8 & 9 is flattened 

 at the point H on its superior surface, which is an indication that 

 a tyne was about to take its rise. The flattening cannot be a mere 

 accidental variation, because it is found in all the antlers which 

 present 4 or 5 inches of beam. Direct evidence as to the crown is 

 wanting ; but the fact that all the antlers (some twenty-six or thirty) 

 are broken in some part of the beam, implies that they possessed a 

 crown which was not simple *, and the median flattening renders it 

 very probable that it was forked, as in Axis and Busa. A fragment 

 of a crown of two points, from the Crag of Sutton, in the possession 

 of Mr. Prestwich, may perhaps be assigned to this species. On the 

 whole, the scanty evidence points in the direction of the Axis and 

 Rusa rather than in any other. 



In Mr. Whincopp's collection, which I examined at Woodbridge 

 in 1866, is a nearly perfect specimen of a simple styliform antler, 

 about 3 inches long, shed and deeply grooved (fig. 10). It is pro- 

 bably the first young antler of this species. It was accompanied by 

 two fragments of similar form. 



Two small waterworn fragments of the base of the antler of 

 Cervus suttonensis have been referred by Prof. Owen to the Cervus 

 dicranoceros of Kaup from the Miocene of Darmstadt. If, however, 

 Prof. Owen's figures in the ' Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society ' (vol. vii. p. 234, figs. 14a, 16) be compared with those of 

 Dr. Kaup (Oss. foss. de Darmstadt, tab. 24. figs. 3, 3e), it will be 

 seen that the former antler, which is very much waterworn, pos- 

 sesses a beam (op. tit. fig. 14a) which is much larger than the simple 

 bifurcated antler of C. dicranoceros described by Dr. Kaup f . 



In C. dicranoceros the beam and the brow-tyne were equal in 

 length or nearly so, while in the series of antlers of C. suttonensis 

 the beam was at least as well developed as in Axis and E,usa, and 

 bore a crown. For the same reason also the series of antlers cannot 

 be referred to the C. australis of Marcel de Serres, from the marine 

 sands of Montpellier. 



* The cause of the fracture is the firm fixture of the crown in the stratum 

 while the rest was exposed to the clash of the waves which washed the antlers 

 out of the fluviatile gravel in which they were imbedded. 



t Prof. Owen's fig. 16 represents an antler viewed on the underside, and 

 in such perspective that the brow-tyne appears to be of nearly equal size with 

 the beam. 



