12 
as the term elk was formerly indefinitely used for any large 
deer’s horns, without their precise identity having been 
determined — a point very easy to decide by a competent 
authority. 
Although we have no historical records of the former 
existence of the Elk in Britain, it is enumerated by Csesar 
as living in the great Hercynian forest during the Roman 
period; since which, by the destruction of the ancient forests 
and other effects of civilization, the Elk, like many of its 
contemporaries, has entirely disappeared from its early 
haunts, except Northern Europe, Northern Asia, and the 
wooded districts of Canada and the United States. It appears 
to have been well known to the lake dwellers in Switzerland, 
amongst whose rejectamenta its remains occur, and from 
which district it has, however, also long since disappeared.* 
The third addition to the Extinct Fauna of the East 
Riding of Yorkshire is of another interesting species of the 
same family — the Reindeer. In 1860 I found, at the base 
of the cliff, in a lacustrine deposit near the top of the lake at 
Skipsea, the horn of the Reindeer, and also of the large 
variety of the Red deer, both of which are now in my 
possession. 
It is somewhat remarkable that the three animals to which 
I have called attention, as formerly inhabitants of East 
Yorkshire, are all of strictly boreal habits, and afford 
evidence, as Mr. Boyd Dawkins observes, “ that the climate 
of Pleistocene Britain was more severe than it is now; that 
at a time when Britain formed a portion of the Europseo- 
Asiatic continent, it more closely resembled that now obtain- 
ing in the fur- countries of Northern Asia than elsewhere.” 
As connected with this portion of my subject, I cannot 
* The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and other parts of Europe , by Dr. F. 
Keller ; translated by J. E. Lee. 1866. 
