. A history of British fossil mammals, and birds . from the opening of thecave, which is situated in the side of a precipitous hillabout seventy feet above the level of the sea. The fragment of the skull (fig. 198) showed the placesfrom which the antlers had been recently shed, and, by theirproximity to the occipital ridge, determined the identityof the fossil with the Cervus tarandus. In the Fallow andRed-deer, as in all other recent cervine species correspond-ing in size with the fossil, the antlers spring from thefrontal bones nearer the orbits and further from the occi-put. The extinct Cer
. A history of British fossil mammals, and birds . from the opening of thecave, which is situated in the side of a precipitous hillabout seventy feet above the level of the sea. The fragment of the skull (fig. 198) showed the placesfrom which the antlers had been recently shed, and, by theirproximity to the occipital ridge, determined the identityof the fossil with the Cervus tarandus. In the Fallow andRed-deer, as in all other recent cervine species correspond-ing in size with the fossil, the antlers spring from thefrontal bones nearer the orbits and further from the occi-put. The extinct Cervus Guettardi most resembles theRein-deer in the position of the antlers ; but, besides thesmaller size of the skull, the antlers rise a little furtherfrom the occiput. The precise agreement of the fragmentof the skull, of the molar tooth, and of the humerus, insize and form, with those parts in the Rein-deer, verifiesthe inference from the characteristic position of the antlers,as to the species to which the fossils belong. CERVUS TARANDUS. 481. More recog-nisable,— F/g. \9i]. though perhaps not moredecisive, evidence of theCervus tarandus, is af-forded by the discovery ofa fragment of the skullwith the antlers attached,beneath a peat-moss in asmall moor at East Bil-ney, near East Dereham,in the county of Norfolk. -^A drawing of these ant- \ / lerS, transmitted to me cranium of Rein-deer, Berry-head Cave, Devon. by C. B. Eose, Esq., is engraved in cut 197. The cha-racteristic branched brow-antler, though the terminal forksare broken, measured seven inches and a half in length ;the length of the beam from the burr to the fracturedextremity, was thirty one inches in a straight line; thebreadth of the os frontis at the rise of the horns wasthree inches. These specimens correspond with that varietyof the antlers in the Rein-deer which is represented in and 20, pi. iv. tom. iv. of the Ossemens Fossiles. A single mutilated antler, retaining thirty-five inchesof the beam, w
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Keywords: ., bookaut, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, booksubjectpaleontology
