Yol. 59.] THE ELK IX THE THAMES VALLEY. 87 



With regard to the presence of the elk as a fossil in Central 

 Europe, Dr. Nehring l says that it is among the cervine mammals 

 commonly found in Germany, in strata formed during the last 

 thousand years, and is occasionally met with in ' Diluvial ' deposits. 

 In the first-mentioned paper the elk is given as present in Quater- 

 nary beds at five out of the twenty-four Central European localities 

 enumerated ; but in three of these instances the identification 

 is doubtful, and it is only in these three that the remains were 

 accompanied by Elephas primigenius. In the other two cases f 

 although the deposits would be accepted as of Pleistocene age, 

 E. primigenius has not been found in them. 



The North American record of fossil Alces is very similar to that of 

 Europe. Dr. 0. P. Hay, 2 in his recently published Catalogue of the 

 Eossil Yertebrata of North America, gives numerous references to a 

 number of fossils, more or less closely allied to Alces machlis, from what 

 are believed to be Pleistocene deposits ; and Prof. S. W. Williston 3 

 describes a series of upper and lower grinding-teeth which he refers 

 to Alces sp., from similar beds in Kansas. The evidence for the age 

 of some at least of these remains needs verification ; and it seems 

 that in America, as in the Old World, Alces machlis must have been 

 a rare animal in Pleistocene times. 



The occurrence of elk-remains with those of mammoth, musk-ox, 

 reindeer, and two forms of bison in the ' ice-cliffs ' of Eschscholtz 

 Bay, was pointed out long ago by Sir John Richardson 4 ; but this 

 does not necessarily indicate a Pleistocene antiquity for the elk 

 in the far north, where the mammoth may have continued to live 

 to a later time than it did in the more temperate latitudes of Europe. 



A remarkable skeleton, with very aberrant though elk-like 

 antlers, has been described from the Quaternary deposits of New 

 Jersey by Prof. AY. B. Scott 5 as a new genus, Cervalces ameru anus, 

 on account of its presenting several characters apparently inter- 

 mediate between Cer-vus and Alces. Mr. R. Lydekker, 6 however, 

 regards this form as only specifically distinct from the elk, and 

 names it Alces Scott i. 



Prof. Cope gave the specific names of Alces brevitrabalis and 

 A. semipalmatus to some fragmentary specimens from the Equus- 

 beds (? Pleistocene) of vYhitman County (Washington) ; but the 

 specimens are very imperfect, and it is difficult to form an opinion 

 as to their specific value. 



Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins ' has referred to the genus Alces certain 



1 ' Uebersicht iiber vierundzwanzig mitteleuropaische Quartar - Faunen ' 

 Zeitschr. Deutsch. Geol. Geseltsch. vol. xxxii (1880) p. 468; also Neue Deutsche 

 Jagd-Zeitung, May 25th, 1889. 



2 Bull. U.S. Geol. Surv. No. 179 (1902). 



3 Univ. of Kansas Geol. Surr. vol ii (1897) p. 301 & pi. xlvii. 



4 ' Zoology of the Yoyage of H.M.S. Herald' 4to, London, 1854, p. 20. 



5 Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 1885 [1886] p. 181. 

 "• ' The Deer of All Lands ' 1898, p. 60. 



7 ' British Pleistocene Cervida? ' Monogr. Paheont. Soc. 1886 (1887). 



