Extinct Group 



3. The Five-tined Deer — Anoglochis tetraceros {Extinct) 



Cervus tetraceros, Dawkins, Quart. 'Journ. Geo/. Soc. vol. xxxiv. p. 416 

 (1878) ; Lydekker, Cat. Foss. Mamm. Brit. Mus. part ii. p. 1 1 3 (1885). 



Characters. — Antlers smaller and simpler than in the last species, giving 

 off a long, undivided sub-basal snag a short distance above the burr, the 

 beam soon after forking and probably curving forwards ; the lower prong 

 of the main rork simple, the upper divided, and its anterior division again 

 splitting. 



This species was established upon the evidence of a series of shed 

 antlers in the British Museum which are crushed flat, and thus give the 

 impression of a straight beam carrying four upright tines on its upper 

 surface. The restoration is consequently somewhat difficult, but there 

 seems little doubt that the first tine represents the sub-basal snag of the 

 antlers of the Virginian deer, and that the beam was then suddenly bent 

 forwards. It would thus show four upwardly projecting tines, of which 

 the first two would be the prongs of the main fork. The annexed figure 

 has been formed by taking the adult antlers and drawing them with the 

 same curvature as those of the Virginian deer, and a comparison with the 

 figures of the latter will leave little doubt as to their essential similarity. 

 Indeed, they might well belong to the same genus. That these antlers 

 are also structurally similar to those of Sedgwick's deer, will likewise be 

 apparent from a comparison of the respective figures, the difference being 

 that whereas in the present species each of the five tines is simple, in 

 Sedgwick's deer all but the terminal one bifurcate ; the one type being 

 evidently only an earlier and simpler form of the other. In younger 

 examples of the antlers of this species there are only four tines, and in still 

 younger ones three ; that is to say, each antler consists of a short sub-basal 

 snag and a simple dichotomous fork, as in young antlers of the Virginian 

 deer. As age advances the sub-basal snag increases in proportionate size 

 till it becomes nearly as large as the true tines. Very young antlers 

 are simply forked, and are then strikingly like those of young American 

 deer. In his original description Professor Dawkins rightly compared the 

 present form with the Virginian deer, remarking that the two were dis- 

 tinguished by the different position of the "brow-tine," that is to say, the 



