NORTH AMERICAN RUMINANTS 
nants, particularly the so-called “tusks” of the Elk, have been used by 
the Indians for ornamental purposes. Specimens illustrating such uses 
will be found in the same halls. The Museum Memoir on the Thompson 
River Indians, by James Teit, contains descriptions of many such gar- 
ments and implements, and the specimens therein described are on 
exhibition in these halls. 
The ancestors of the higher Ruminants are mainly of Old-World 
origin and are comparatively scarce and late in appearance in the 
fossil beds of our own continent. The following exhibits in the 
Hall of Fossil Vertebrates, No. 406, on the fourth floor of the Museum, 
should be examined by the readers of this Guide Leaflet who are 
interested in evolution: 
The Irish Deer, or Irish Elk, (Megaceros hibernicus Owen), from 
near Limerick, Ireland, a form which is related to the recent genus 
Dama. The specimen was presented to the Museum by Prof. Albert 
S. Bickmore. 
A Model, one-fourth natural size, of Cervalces, the great Moose- 
Elk from the Pleistocene beds of New Jersey. The skeleton is in the 
Princeton museum. sy 
A hind limb of a fossil Bison from the western Pleistocene beds of 
Nebraska. 
The mounted skeleton of Merycodus from the Middle Miocene 
beds of Colorado. This is an extinct type of Antelope, related to the 
Pronghorn, but possessed of branching, deciduous, bony antlers like 
those of the deer. 
Skulls and other parts of Paleomeryx and other Miocene ancestors 
of the Deer.—EbiTor. 
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