246 



American Deer 



brockets are not the ancestral types of" the American deer is evident from the 

 tact that remains of these are unknown in North America, and that species 

 with complex antlers of the type of those of the marsh-deer were already 

 in existence at or about the time communication was established between 

 the northern and southern halves of the New World ; remains of such 

 species occurring in the Pliocene beds of Monte Hermoso, in Argentina. 



Rather must the brockets, as has 

 already been pointed out by Mr. A. 

 Gordon Cameron, be regarded as 

 degraded, or arrested, types of the 

 group. 



A large amount of misconception 

 has arisen with regard to the structure 

 of the antlers of this group. In 1872 

 the late Dr. Gray rightly termed the 

 single upright prong arising from the 

 inner side of the lower part of the 

 beam of the antlers of the Virginian 

 deer the " sub-basal snag," but this 

 I ^1 snag Sir Victor Brooke incorrectly 



identified with the brow-tine of the 

 « typical Old World Jeer. This error 



has been pointed out by Mr. A. 

 Gordon Cameron in the following 

 words : — " These characteristic tines 

 have nothing in common with the 

 true brows of Old World types, and 

 rise vertically from the inner side of 

 the beam, between the coronet and the main furcation, usually converg- 

 ing at the apex. They are subject, in common with the antlers that 

 produce them, to all kinds of eccentricities, are frequently forked and 

 sub-palmate ; and appear to bear an inverse relation to the calibre of the 

 posterior prong. They develop with the second antlers of C. kucurus, 

 but only with the later antlers of C. macrotis" 



Regarding the different forms assumed by the antlers of the group, the 

 same observer writes as follows : — " In the dominant type of the north the 



Fig. 68. — Side view of Antlers of Virginian Deer, 

 from a specimen in the British Museum. 

 The sub-basal snags are the long, upright 

 prongs on the extreme left, passing up be- 

 tween the beam of each side at its bend. 



