Quadrupeds. 2345 



The Rein Deer in Orkney. — A small pair of horns of the rein deer, still attached 

 to part of the skull, were found in the island of Sanday not long ago, and are now in 

 the Kirkwall Museum. At the back of the skull there are still traces of ligament, 

 which would indicate the relic to be of no great antiquity. It is said that rein deer 

 were once introduced into these islands, and that it was so appears probable from their 

 horns not being more frequently met with in the more modern formations of our 

 islands. Owen tells us, nevertheless, that at one period — that of the hyaenas — they 

 did exist here. — Id. 



The European Elk. — This animal has escaped a place in any of Mr. Van Voorst's 

 series of books illustrative of British Natural History ; yet that it should not have been 

 a contemporary of the wild bull, the aurochs and the rein deer, in our ancient forests, 

 seems, a priori, improbable : accordingly we find its remains have been discovered in 

 Scotland. Mr. Owen mentions a donation to the Koyal Society of Edinburgh, of " a 

 painting in oils of the head and horns of an elk, found in a marl-pit, Forfarshire," but 

 he suggests that they belonged to a rein deer, not having seen them. The painting 

 now in the College Museum of Natural History is evidently that of the head and 

 horns of the European elk, — not of the great Irish deer, the rein deer, or the fallow 

 deer. — Id. 



The Red Deer in Orkney. — This animal was in all probability extirpated by man. 

 In the Museum at Kirkwall are three or four fragments of antlers, found in Pictish 

 towers, in different parts of the country. Its horns are very common in the peat. In 

 Shetland its remains are, I believe, unknown. — Id. 



Remarkable Hybrid. — " This remarkable filly (seven months old) was found a short 

 time since in the New Forest, and is evidently of a mixed breed between the horse 

 and the deer. Her mother, a pony mare, was observed to associate with some red 

 deer stags in the New Forest for some months, and at last this foal was seen by her 

 side. The nose shows a proximity both to the stag and horse : her forehead is round, 

 like that of the deer : legs slender and distinctly double : hoofs pointed and partly 

 double : colour brown, lighter under the belly ; and tail like a deer. This extraordi- 

 nary animal is the property of T. G. Attwater, Esq., of Attwater, at the village of 

 Bodenham, three miles from Salisbury. Dr. Fowler, of that city, has inspected the 

 hybrid, and is quite satisfied of the correctness of the preceding statement; and 

 Colonel Buckley, a keeper of the New Forest, has likewise seen the animal, and is of 

 a similar opinion." — ' Illustrated London News, 1 December 9, 1848. 



[This statement is accompanied by a figure drawn by George Landseer, which 

 bears sufficient evidence of its fidelity, but which, excepting in the shortness of its 

 tail, does not differ from the portrait of any ordinary foal. I should much like further 

 information on the subject : at present I am disposed to discredit the possibility of a 

 hybrid between a soliped and a ruminant animal. The description quoted above is 

 most unsatisfactory. — Edward Newman.'] 



Combat between a Bull and a Stag. — The ' Salisbury Herald ' states, that, a few 

 days since, at Ashton Keynes, in that county, a two years old bull and a fat stag fu- 

 riously attacked each other, and fought till the latter dropped dead, covered with 

 wounds, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the victor was removed from the 

 dead body of his fallen foe. — From the ' Sussex Agricultural Express,' November 4, 

 1848. 



