Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/117

] antlers in the living deer, which begin with a simple point, and increase the number of tynes until their limit is reached. It is obvious, from the progressive diminution in size and complexity of the antlers in tracing them back from the Pleiocenes into the mid Meiocenes of Europe, that in the latter period we are approaching the zero of antler development. In the lower Meiocenes I have failed to meet with evidence that the deer possessed any antlers.

It is also a point of singular interest to observe that the nearest living analogue of the Meiocene deer is the muntjak, now only found in Asia along with the tapir. Cervus dicroceros also co-existed with that animal in the upper Meiocene forests of Germany. With one exception, all the Pleiocene deer which can be brought into relation with living forms are closely allied to the Axes, Rusæ, or others, which also are dwellers in the Oriental region. They belong to a fauna now met with only in the forests of India, China, Japan, and the Malay Archipelago. The exception is the Cervus cusanus, which possessed an antler not very far removed from that of the roe, an animal now so widely spread over Europe and northern and central Asia. I should infer from this that the Oriental region has offered a secure place of refuge to the Axeidæ, so abundant in the Pleiocenes of France and Italy, from those changes in their environment which compelled them to retreat from Europe. The fact of the presence, in this quarter of the world, of a group of animals now met with only in warm regions, confirms the conclusions as to the warm climate of Pleiocene Europe, which M. de Saporta has recently arrived at from a study of the vegetation.