Report of the Meetings Volume 13 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1844 edition. Excerpt: ...lower jaws, closely agree with the type of the Fallow and Reindeer. Prof. Phillips first described the skull of the female Megaceros, and showed that, as in the typical Deer, it had no trace of antlers. I have had the opportunity, through the kindness of the Earl of Enniskillen, of examining three other skulls of the female Megaceros. The skull in this sex is chiefly characterized by a longitudinal angular prominence, which rises from the posterior half of the frontal suture, and very much resembles the median prominence, sometimes called the third horn of the Giraffe. An irregular subquadrangular vacancy intervenes between the angular extremities of the frontal, nasal, lachrymal and superior maxillary bones. The roof of each orbit is perforated by a circular foramen, smaller than in the male. The earliest observations bear testimony to the abundance of the remains of the Megaceros in Ireland. In the account given by Molyneux in 1697, three specimens were disinterred from the same bog within the extent of a single acre, at Dardiston in the county of Meath. The first specimen discovered in England consisted of a skull and antlers from beneath a peat-moss at Cowthorpe, near North Deighton, in the county of York. Mr. Parkinson refers the beams of two antlers found in the till at Walton in Essex, on account of their large size, to the great Irish Deer, and I have obtained more satisfactory evidence of the Megaceros from the same newer pliocene stratum, by inspection of the collection of fossils belonging to Mr. Brown of Stanway, in which is preserved, not only the large round beam, but the characteristic brow-antler and part of the palm, as far as where it has expanded to a breadth of 10 inches. The length of the brow-antler is 5-inches, but...