On a New Species of Fossil Deer from Clacton

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
1. Introduction .—In the collection of fossil mammals found in the freshwater deposits of Clacton by Mr. John Brown, of Stanway, and now in the British Museum, is a series of antlers, forty-one in number, which Mr. Davies could refer to none of the fossil species of the genus Cervus . A careful examination has convinced me of the truth of his conclusion, and that they indicate a species of deer hitherto unknown, not only in Britain but also on the Continent. For it I propose the name Cervus Browni in memory of Mr. John Brown, to whose indefatigable labour in collecting fossils we owe very much of our knowledge of the Pleistocene Mammalia. Dr. Falconer, whose attention was directed by Mr. Davies to some of these antlers, considered them to belong to a species distinct from the Axis of the Crag and Forest-bed *, being unaware at the time that the nearly perfect antler, Plate XVII. fig. 4 (which shows that the Clacton deer had no affinities with any round-antlered deer), belonged to the series of fragments which he inscribed in his note-book as those of Cervus Clactonianus , and considering that the antler in question, which is taken as the type of the species, belonged really to Cervus dama *. I have therefore felt justified in designating the species after its discoverer, whose name has been as yet ignored in terminology, instead of adopting Dr. Falconer's manuscript name, which he never attempted to define. Evidence derived from antlers is, in the

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: