CAMELOPARDALIDiE. 409 



Fig. 159 represents one of a pair of antlers from trie bed 

 of the Boyne at Drogheda, now in the museum of Sir Philip 

 Egerton, Bart., which measures 30 inches in length, and 

 sends off not fewer than fifteen branches or "tynes." a 

 is the "brow-tyne," which rises immediately above the 

 "burr ;" h the second, c the third, and d the "crown" or ter- 

 minal cluster of tynes, which gave to the deer developing 

 them at the period of his full perfection the title of " crowned 

 hart." 



The little roebuck (Ccepreolus), like the red-deer, appears 

 from its fossil remains to have continued to exist from the 

 prehistorical post-pliocene times to the present period. 



Family. — C amelopard xlidm. 



Eemains of a large ruminant resembling the Giraffe in 

 the proportions of the lower jaw, and in the secondary modifi- 

 cations of the grinding teeth, have been found in old pliocene 

 deposits of the south of France and of Greece. It had limbs 

 as long as those of the Giraffe, but it appears to have been 

 devoid of horns, and to have shewn some annectant charac- 

 ters with more normal families of ruminants. M. Gaudry 

 proposes for this form, as exemplified by the fossil remains 

 recently discovered at Pikermi, the genus Helladotherium, to 

 which also he refers the Camelopardalis Biturigum of Duver- 

 noy * The fossils from the older pliocene of the Sewalik hills, 



* " Comptes Kendus de l'Acad. des Sciences," 1860. I had expressed a 

 similar opinion in the letter cited by Prof. Duvernoy in his Memoir : — " 'Dans 

 ses characteres les plus essentiels le fossile d'Issoudun approche davantage du 

 genre Girafe, mais differe d'une maniere frappante des especes existantes du 

 sud et de Test de l'Afrique, et que ses deviations tendent vers le sous-genre 

 Elan.' Ainsi M. Owen irait encore plus loin que moi dans l'appreciation des 

 differences qu'il a trouvees entre la Girafe de Nubie et le fossile d'Issoudun 

 et semblerait vouloir les elever a des characteres generiques." P. 18. Annales 

 des Sciences Naturelles, 3d serie, torn. i. (Zoologie), 1843, p. 1, pi. 2. " Sur 

 une machoire de Giraffe fossile decouverte a Issoudun." 



