152 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF 



this species so much resemble each other, that they cannot be deter- 

 mined from isolated fragments. 



Ruminating animals were infinitely more numerous than at the 

 epoch of the palseotheria ; their numerical proportion even must differ 

 hut little from what it now is ; hut we are convinced that there were 

 many different species. 



This we may confidently assert with respect to the stag, of superior 

 size even to the elk, which is common in the mail deposites and turf 

 bogs of Ireland and England, and of which remains have heen disin- 

 terred in France, Germany, and Italy, in the same beds which contain 

 the bones of the elephant. Its large and branching antlers extend 

 twelve or fourteen feet from one point to the other, in allowing for the 

 curved portions. 



This distinction is not so clear with respect to the bones of deer and oxen 

 which have been collected in certain rocks ; they are (and particu- 

 larly in England) sometimes accompanied with the bones of the ele- 

 phant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, and those of a hyena, which are 

 also met with in many layers of alluvial deposites, together with the 

 pachydermata : consequently they are of the same age ; but there is 

 yet much difficulty in deciding how they differ from the present breeds 

 of similar animals. 



The clefts of the rocks of Gibraltar, Cette, Nice, Uliveta, near Pisa, 

 and others on the banks of the Mediterranean, are filled with a red and 

 firm cement, which envelopes fragments of rock and fresh-water shells, 

 with many bones of quadrupeds, for the most part fractured, and which 

 have been called osseous breccia?. The bones which fill them some- 

 times present characteristics sufficient to prove that they have belonged 

 to animals unknown at least in Europe. We find there, for instance, 

 four species of deer, three of w ; hich have characteristics in their teeth 

 observable only in the deer of the Indian Archipelago. 



There is a fifth race known, near Verona, whose antlers exceed in 

 spread those of the deer of Canada. 



We also find in particular places, with the bones of the rhinoceros 

 and other quadrupeds of this epoch, those of a deer so closely resem- 

 bling the rein-deer, that it is difficult to assign distinguishing charac- 

 ters to it ; and what is still more extraordinary, rein- deer are confined 

 to the coldest climates of the north, whilst the whole genus of the rhi- 

 noceros belongs to the torrid zone. 



There are in the layers of which we are speaking, remains of a 

 species very similar to the fallow-deer, but a third larger, and quanti- 



