Discussion.
Prof. Owen said that he thought we ought to be deeply grateful to the author for the interesting, new, and valuable information his paper had imparted to us. He regarded it as the best and most complete analysis that we possessed of the Cervine fossils, showing, as it did, a close and industrious observation of a vast number of specimens. It was especially valuable for the enlarged and beautiful deductions drawn from individual specimens, and from a comparison of extinct with rare living forms.
Prof. A. Leith Adams agreed with the author in comparing the large horns in one of his diagrams to those of Rusa equina. He suggested that the differences in the antlers might be dependent on differences of age, and stated that the antlers described under the name of Cervus Brownii really represented the type of Cervus dama. One of the small horns resembled youthful horns of Cervus elaphus. He had no doubt that the Indian Deer are remnants of Miocene or, it may be, Eocene species.
The President thought the author fully deserved the eulogy passed upon him by Prof. Owen, and remarked that M. Gaudry had just been writing on the same subject. He referred to the appearance of Ruminants with pachydermatoid characters in Miocene times, and inquired whether the antlers of the Miocene Deer were shed or broken off, the horns in Dicranoceros being stated by Prof. Gaudry to undergo separation by fracture. He further referred to researches of his own upon the conditions of blood-supply associated with the growth of the caducous horns of existing Deer, and suggested that perhaps the creeping in of a cold climate might induce a failure of nutrition, and cause originally permanent horns to fall off.
The Author defended his position against the suggestions of Prof. Adams, and remarked that the larger and more highly developed forms did not occur along with the simpler Capreoline types of antlers of the Miocene. There could be no question of mistaking his larger antlers for those of Red Deer; their number and constancy of form rendered this impossible. Cervus Brownii, he admitted, might be a variety of the living Fallow Deer (Cervus dama), but it is certainly not the normal form of the antler of that species. He pointed to a sketch of a specimen from La Grive, which plainly showed that the antlers of Dicranoceros were deciduous, and stated that Cervus Sedgwickii is probably the same as the C. dicranios of Nesti, from the Val d'Arno, in the Florence Museum.
