THE FALLOW DEER. 61 



The evidence for the recognition of C. dama as a member of the Palaeolithic fauna 

 is inconclusive, and there has been much difference of opinion on the subject. Owen 1 

 says that there is no decisive evidence of it as coeval with Megaceros and Red Deer. 

 He alludes to Buckland's record of fragments of palmated antlers from Kirkdale and 

 Paviland, and to others from the peat at Newbury and from the clay and lignite at 

 Bacton, but remarks that such specimens are far from yielding satisfactory grounds 

 for identification. 



Dawkins does not include the Fallow Deer in his list of Post-glacial mammals, 2 

 and Woodward and Sherborn 3 say of it, " not a British fossil." Osborn 4 does not 

 admit it as a member of the 3rd or Upper Pleistocene fauna, including it only in the 

 4th or Post-Pleistocene fauna. On the other hand there is evidence of its presence 

 in Palaeolithic deposits. W. W. Cordeaux 5 records it from Newnham, near Cambridge ; 

 and the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge, has a series of bones and fragments of antlers 

 from the gravel at Newmarket. 



Perhaps the most important piece of evidence as to the occurrence of the Fallow 

 Deer in Britain in Pleistocene times is afforded by the remains from the cave at Hoe 

 Grange, Derbyshire, described by Bemrose and Newton. 6 A great number of bones, 

 teeth and fragmentary antlers were found which from their small size the authors 

 attributed with some hesitation to the Fallow Deer. In the discussion on the paper 

 Dawkins expressed scepticism, pointing out that not much importance could be 

 attached to measurements of bones and teeth in such a variable group as the 

 Cervidae. 



The British Museum has an antler (Text-fig. 31, b) said to be from the Neolithic of 

 Clapton, Essex. Dr. Frank Corner has two metapodials from the high terrace gravels 

 of Dovercourt Park, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they belong to C. 

 dama. The evidence at present available as to its occurrence in Britain seems to be, 

 that while (as C. browni) it is a member of the Forest Bed fauna and occurs sparingly 

 in the Palaeolithic deposits, it did not survive to Neolithic times. It was reintroduced 

 into Britain possibly, as Millais suggests, by the Phoenicians, possibly, as in the opinion 

 of most of those who have alluded to the subject, by the Romans. 



Jeitteles 7 assembled a large number of records of C. dama from strata at different 

 horizons in various parts of Europe, and claimed that they proved the wide distri- 

 bution of the animal in prehistoric times. Dawkins 8 commented on the uncritical 



1 ' Brit. Foss. Mamm.,' p. 483. 



2 ' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' xxiv (1868), pp. 511—16. 



3 ' British Fossil Vertebrata,' p. 330. 



4 ' Age of Mammals,' 1910, p. 428. 



5 ' Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc.,' iii (1880), p. 348. 



6 ' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' lxi (1903), p. 32. 



7 " Der zoologische Garten," August, 1*71 ; see also translation by Sclater, ' Nature,' xi, p. 71. 



8 'Nature,' xi, pp. 112 — 11. 



9 



