Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/110

84 skill, as will be evident from his work, the bombastic title of which may be overlooked. In the determination of the various fragments of horns he was assisted by a well-known and excellent zoologist, Professor Nitzsch, of Halle. The four-tined elk-horn is figured (pl. v., fig. 8), but unfortunately not the pieces of Fallow Deer's horns. Besides the remains of animals and plants, these places of sacrifice yielded various fashioned bones, three needles, fragments of battle-axes, pieces of urns, four entire vessels, and a polished shin-bone of an ox. Dr. Wagner also recognised therein a skate and other bones beautifully polished. No human bones were found. As regards the Fallow Deer, Dr. Wagner writes as follows (p. 34):—"In digging at various times in this temple, we found fragments of horns which were more than suggestive of those of the Fallow Deer; but as no complete skeleton was ever secured, nor even such portions as would place the matter beyond doubt, it is still uncertain whether this species was sacrificed along with the Elk (Cervus alces), and the subject requires further investigation."

Alex. von Nordmann, in his 'Palæontologie Südrusslands,' gives a drawing of five teeth from a "Cervus fossilis damæ affinis." But in the diluvial period, and in later prehistoric times the Fallow Deer existed in more northern latitudes. In the year 1871, in the centre of the town of Hamburg, and subsequently in a tributary of the Elbe, numerous upper and lower jaws were discovered, larger than those of the existing Cervus dama, except as regards the teeth, which corresponded in size with those of the existing species. With these were found remains of the Aurochs, and other large oxen, and bones of the horse, pig, and other animals. The remains first discovered were found between tree-stumps in twenty to twenty-two feet of "solid black peat, the alluvium of the Alster, below the diluvial Geestrücken of Neustadt."

Prof. Steenstrup has given a short account of the collection of animal remains from the Kjökkenmöddings and peat bogs of Denmark, which were exhibited on the occasion of the Archaeological Congress in 1869 in Copenhagen, amongst which he mentions (pp. 160 et seq.) the Fallow Deer, whose horns and bones were