William Boyd Dawkins

“ Till such an antler be found it is better to keep the animals apart in classification. And even if they be viewed as belonging to one species, they have only been met with in pleistocene deposits in this country and in France, and they may reasonably be taken as visitors from the south, such as the contemporary Hippopotami. In any case, I would submit that they do not afford satisfactory grounds for believing with Dr. Jeitteles that the present distribution of the Fallow Deer in Northern and Central Europe by the hand of man is "an ancient fable." ”

“ It is, of course, easy for anyone to classify the flat antler as belonging to one species and the round to another; but the value of the determination depends upon the number of species living at the same time in the same place, possessed respectively of round and flattened antlers. In the pleistocene and prehistoric ages, there were four animals which had portions of their antlers flattened—the Reindeer, Irish Elk, true Elk, and Stag—to which, according to Dr. Jeitteles, must be added the Fallow Deer. ”

“ The identification of fragments of antlers is one of the most difficult tasks which a naturalist can take in hand, and where there are several species of deer associated together in the same deposit, it is sometimes impossible to assign a given fragment to its rightful owner. ”