Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 34.djvu/486

404 Palais des Beaux Arts at Lyons, under the care of my friend Dr. Lortet. In Germany the same form may be recognized under the name of Prox furcatus of Hensel, from the Miocene of Steinheim.

The simple bifurcating type of antler is met with also in the Upper Miocenes of Eppelsheim, considered by Prof. Gaudry to be older than those of Mont Léberon and Cucuron, in the Deer named by Dr. Kaup C. anoceros and C. dicranoceros, which seems to me to be an older variety of the same form. In these the fork of the antler is further removed from the burr than in the Dicroceros elegans, and is so far therefore more differentiated. Closely allied to them is the Cervus australis of De Serres, from the Lower Pliocene strata of Montpellier, which is the last fossil representative of Deer of this peculiar type in the European Tertiaries.

The difference between these antlers is so very slight that I feel inclined to view their possessors as homologous species, using the term so happily employed by Dr. Heer to denote a lineal ancestry. In the Dicroceros of the Middle Miocenes we find the antler at a minimum of development, consisting merely of a forked crown springing directly from the burr, while in the Deer of the Upper Miocene the forked crown is separated from the burr by a short beam; and this form is repeated in the Lower Pliocene C. australis. The Middle Miocene type is preserved among the existing Deer by the Muntjak, or Cervulus, of the oriental region of Asia.

C. Matheroni, Gervais, Paléont. 1859, p. 149; Gaudry, Animaux fossiles de Mont Léberon, 4to, p. 65, pl. 13.

C. Bravardi, Brit. Mus. Cat. no. 34623.

The Cervus Matheroni of the Upper Miocenes of Cucuron and Mont Léberon is considered by Profs. Gervais and Gaudry to belong to the same division of round-antlered Deer as the Axis. It is, however, certain, from the examination of the nearly perfect antlers (fig. 1) in the British Museum, and their comparison with those figured by Prof. Gaudry, that its affinities are rather with the Capreoli. The specimen termed C. Bravardi in the British Museum is the type selected for publication by MM. Pomel and Bravard in a work which, unfortunately, still remains unpublished.

Definition.—The characters of the two antlers (fig. 1), which belong to the same individual, are as follows:—Pedicle moderate, round; antler erect, deeply grooved, four-pointed at most; burr (A) at right angles to long axis of antler and stout; second tyne, D, given off nearly at right angles to beam, oval, waved, upturned at tip; third tyne, E, upturned, round, and at acute angles to beam; crown, CF, small and two-pointed, palmated.