86 MR. E. T. NEWTON ON [Feb. I903, 



the one containing the elk, remains of Eleplias jorimigenius were 

 discovered. 



The elk-remains found at North Berwick : are said to have been 

 accompanied by Roman objects, which, if correct, would point to 

 the elk having continued in Britain until the Soman period, which 

 is not improbable, seeing that it is known to have been living in 

 Central Europe in Csesar's time. 



It is a remarkable fact that, although Cervus giganieus and Alces 

 rnachlis have been found in similar peaty deposits in the United 

 Kingdom, their remains do not seem ever to have been found 

 together. Megaceros was certainly contemporaneous with the 

 mammoth, and continued to inhabit Great Britain and Ireland 

 while some of our peat-deposits were being formed. The elk, 

 as we have seen, is not known as a Pleistocene mammal in this 

 country, but appears for the first time in more modern peaty 

 deposits. Both these large cervine mammals have been recorded 

 from the I^le of Man, but not as being found together. 



Although the occurrence of remains of these two animals in 

 peat would seem to show that both were living here at about the 

 same period, yet, as the formation of peat has continued for a 

 lengthened period, the particular peat-beds in which these two 

 animals have left their remains may be of different ages, and the 

 elk may not have arrived here until after the departure or extinction 

 of Megaceros. Or, it may be that they were contemporaneous, but 

 did not occupy the same districts. 



Bones of the elk have been recorded from lake-dwellings at 

 several localities in Switzerland : but in each case they have been 

 associated with modern species of mammals, which do not indicate 

 an earlier date than Neolithic. 



M. Edouard Harle 2 has described and figured the ungual phalange 

 of an elk, from a deposit at La Plagnotte (Ariege) which he 

 concludes to be transitional between the Quaternary and Recent 

 periods. The same writer also says that the remains of elk are 

 very rare in the South-east of France, a district well known 

 to him, and that in no instance have they been detected among the 

 numerous bones of mammals from the Quaternary deposits of that 

 region. Earlier French writers, such as Jules de Christol 3 and 

 Paul Gervais, 4 speak of the elk as occurring in the Diluvium of 

 France ; but it is open to question whether those described by 

 Christol are really of Pleistocene age ; and Gervais says that the 

 elk appears to have left its remains in the Diluvium, but that they 

 are few in number and the determination uncertain. It seems, 

 therefore, that the elk was a rare animal in France in Pleistocene 

 times, if indeed it was present there before the close of that epoch. 



1 W. H. Maxwell, ' Hill-side & Border Sketches ' 8vo, London, vol. i (1847) 

 p. 317. 



2 Bull. Soc. Geol. France, ser. 3, vol. xxviii (1900) p. 39. 



3 Ann. Sci. Nat, ser. 2, vol. iv (1835) p. 201. 



4 ' Zoologie & Paleontologie Franchises ' 2nd edit. (1859) p. 143. 



