420 ON THE EUROPEAN MIOCENE AND PLIOCENE DEER. 



Discussion. 



Prof. Owen said that he thought we ought to be deeply grateful 

 to the author for the interesting, new, and valuable information his 

 paper had imparted to us. He regarded it as the best and most 

 complete analysis that we possessed of the Cervine fossils, showing, 

 as it did, a close and industrious observation of a vast number of 

 specimens. It was especially valuable for the enlarged and beau- 

 tiful deductions drawn from individual specimens, and from a com- 

 parison of extinct with rare living forms. 



Prof. A. Leith Adams agreed with the author in comparing the 

 large horns in one of his diagrams to those of Rusa equina. He 

 suggested that the differences in the antlers might be dependent on 

 differences of age, and stated that the antlers described under the 

 name of Oervus Brownii really represented the type of Cervus dama. 

 One of the small horns resembled youthful horns of Cervus elaphus. 

 He had no doubt that the Indian Deer are remnants of Miocene or, 

 it may be, Eocene species. 



The President thought the author fully deserved the eulogy 

 passed upon him by Prof. Owen, and remarked that M. Gaudry had 

 just been writing on the same subject. He referred to the appear- 

 ance of Euminants with pachydermatoid characters in Miocene times, 

 and inquired whether the antlers of the Miocene Deer were shed or 

 broken off, the horns in Dicranoceros being stated by Prof. Gaudry to 

 undergo separation by fracture. He further referred to researches 

 of his own upon the conditions of blood-supply associated with the 

 growth of the caducous horns of existing Deer, and suggested that 

 perhaps the creeping in of a cold climate might induce a failure of 

 nutrition, and cause originally permanent horns to fall off. 



The Author defended his position against the suggestions of Prof. 

 Adams, and remarked that the larger and more highly developed 

 forms did not occur along with the simpler Capreoline types of 

 antlers of the Miocene. There could be no question of mistaking 

 his larger antlers for those of Eed Deer ; their number and constancy 

 of form rendered this impossible. Oervus Brownii, he admitted, 

 might be a variety of the living Fallow Deer {Cervus dama), but it 

 is certainly not the normal form of the antler of that species. He 

 pointed to a sketch of a specimen from La Grive, which plainly 

 showed that the antlers of Dicranoceros were deciduous, and stated 

 that Cervus Sedgwickii is probably the same as the C. dicranios of 

 Nesti, from the Yal d'Amo, in the Florence Museum. 



