1885.] Prof. B. Dawkins. Pleiocene and Pleistocene Deer, 345 



May 21, 1885. 



Mr. WARREN de la RUE, Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The Right Hon. Lord Justice Sir Charles Synge C. Bowen, whose 

 certificate had been suspended, as required by the Statutes, was 

 balloted for and elected a Fellow of the Society. 



The Presents received were laid on the table, and thanks ordered 

 for them. v 



The following Papers were read : — 



I. "Contributions to the History of the Pleiocene and Pleisto- 

 cene Deer. Part I. Cervus verticornis, Cervus Savini." 

 By W. Boyd Dawkins, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., Professor of 

 Geology and Palaeontology in the Victoria University- 

 Received April 27, 1885. 



(Abstract.) 



The numerous cervine remains which occur in the various collec- 

 tions in Britain and on the Continent have been studied by the author 

 for the last twenty-five years, and in this communication two species, 

 the one hitherto ill-defined, and the other new to science, have been 

 described. 



The first, or Cervus verticornis, Dawkins, remarkable for the singular 

 forward and downward curvature of the first tine, is represented by a 

 large series of skulls and antlers, which enable the author to define 

 the changes in antler-form from youth to old age, as well as to rele- 

 gate it to the division of deer with palmated antlers, and to establish 

 its geological age to be Pleiocene, and early Pleistocene, in Norfolk 

 and Suffolk. 



The second, or Cervus Savini, is represented by several skulls and 

 many antlers, which present considerable modifications in form at 

 varying ages. It also belongs to the section of deer with palmated 

 antlers, and is probably the ancestral form of the extinct (Cervus 

 Broivni, Dawkins) and living (C. dama) types of fallow deer. It has 

 hitherto only been met with in the early Pleistocene forest-bed series 

 of Norfolk and Suffolk. 



2 r 2 



