Quadrupeds. 1625 



feet of human agency. Mr. Owen was the next who saw them, and 

 my readers have been already made acquainted, by his own pen, with 

 the conclusions at which he had arrived. These may, in brief, be 

 stated thus : that the skulls in question were those of males, and not 

 of females ; and that the small cavity which appeared in the centre of 

 the forehead had been produced by wrenching off the horns ! It is 

 thus that Mr. Owen proposes to destroy the overwhelming weight of 

 evidence, that would otherwise spring into existence to the utter an- 

 nihilation of his favourite theory. Not only, however, has the Profes- 

 sor failed of overturning the obvious, but certainly, awkward facts he 

 dreaded, but he has made the attempt precisely in such a manner as 

 to expose the weakness of his position, and show how untenable is his 

 theory. 



He says — " The conclusion to which I arrived, after a careful com- 

 parison of these skulls with unmutilated skulls of the male and female 

 Megaceros in the presence of Mr. Nolan and another gentleman, is, that 

 they do agree in every respect [with the male head], except in the want 

 of horns, which have been broken off, together with a portion of the fron- 

 tal bone from which they grew, leaving that wide vacuity in the upper 

 wall of the skull cavity." My reply is, that all these statements are inac- 

 curate ; and I am surprised at their coming from so eminent a compar- 

 ative anatomist as Professor Owen. These skulls do not " agree in 

 every respect with the male head, except in the want of horns" — for 

 they do not possess the peduncles, or foot-stalks, from which the horns 

 in the male animal spring. The horns also of the male Giant Deer 

 do not grow from the frontal bone," but are attached to the peduncles 

 I have just mentioned, which are bony processes, springing partly 

 from the sides of the head, and partly from the front, flanking as it 

 were the strong bony fillet already described Neither is the cavity 

 in the centre of the forehead of the two female deer in question a wide 

 one. 



How very few must have been the number of male skulls of this 

 stupendous animal, which Mr. Owen has had an opportunity of ex- 

 amining ; and how abnormal must have been their structure, when an 

 inspection of them could have suggested such extraordinary observa- 

 tions, as I have just quoted. It is, in the first place, next to impos- 

 sible to form an accurate judgment from the inspection of one or two 

 solitary specimens. While I write I have many dozen of these reliques 

 around me, and many more at my command, on an hours' notice. I 

 merely state this to palliate Professor Owen's mistake, and to account 



