13- Damine Group 



The basal half or the antlers so closely resembles those of the latter that it 

 would be almost impossible to differentiate specimens with the coronal half 

 broken away. 



Distribution. — Typically from the Plistocene deposits at Clacton, Essex, 

 overlying the forest-bed. It does not appear, however, that the antlers 

 from the latter deposit described as C. savini can be satisfactorily dis- 

 tinguished as representing a distinct species, on account of the still smaller 

 development of the palmation. Not improbably this species, or race, 

 indicates a transition towards the next. 



3. The Mesopotamian Fallow Deer — Cervus mesopotamicus 



Cervus [Damn) mesopotamicus, Brooke, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1875, p. 265, 1876, 

 p. 298. 



Cervus mesopotamicus, Brooke, op. cit. 1878, p. 914; Fitzinger, SB. Ak. 

 Wien, vol. lxxix. part i. p. 62 (1879). 



Duma mesopotamica, Sclater, List Anim. Zool. Gardens, p. 171 (1883). 



Characters. — Larger than C. dama ; the colour much brighter (as bright 

 as in the Indian spotted deer), the row of elongated white spots running on 

 each side of the dark median line of the back in the former coalescing into 

 a continuous band, and the black on the upper surface of the tail narrower 

 and confined to its root. Antlers of a totally different type, being some- 

 what expanded at the origin of the trez-tine, which is large and situated 

 some distance above the very short brow-tine, but at the summit are only 

 somewhat flattened, and break up at the crown and summit of the posterior 

 border into some four, five, or more snags. 



The typical specimen was described in 1875, and in the following year 

 Sir Victor Brooke figured several additional shed antlers, which, allowing for 

 age, are all of the same general type as those of the former. In 1877 the 

 Zoological Society of London received a living male (which subsequently 

 bred with a hind of the common species), and in 1878 a female, while a 

 second specimen of the latter sex was presented by Lord Lilford in 1881. 

 The original pair bred together, although their progeny was unfortunately 

 a female. Beyond this little appears to be known of this very interesting 

 species. Fitzinger observes that " in my opinion this form is only a variety 

 of the common fallow deer, and the figured antlers are apparently of an 



