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Show 1890.] SAIGA ANTELOPE FROM PLEISTOCENE DEPOSITS. 615 definite information on the subject. During excavations lately in Orleans Road, Twickenham, the workmen met with the fine example of tbe frontlet and horn-cores of an adult male Saiga ta-tarica now exhibited to the Society. The specimen was secured by Dr. Leeson, who kindly forwarded it to the present writer for determination ; and the fragment is fortunately so characteristic, that the genus and species to which it pertains are at once apparent beyond all doubt. With regard to the circumstances of the discovery, Dr. Leeson remarks that the spot in Orleans Road is about -j mile distant from the N. bank of the Thames, and perhaps not more than six feet above high-water mark. The section exposed consists of two feet of loam and other surface material, resting upon about ten feet of gravel and sand in alternating layers, this being immediately underlain by the London Clay. The specimen was met with in one of the sandy layers about seven feet from the surface. No associated bones were found, and Dr. Leeson's researches have not led to the discovery of any other mammalian remains in the corresponding beds in other parts of the neighbourhood. The nature of the section, however, proves conclusively that the fossil is of Pleistocene age. The specimen, which is shown, of one half the natural size, in the accompanying drawing (see p. 614), exhibits the fused parietals, the frontals, and the greater part of the horn-cores. The cranial roof agrees precisely with that of a recent skull, as described in Dr. Murie's memoir ] ; and the horn-cores, which are preserved for a length of O'l, are strongly marked with longitudinal ridges and grooves. In every respect, indeed, except in the comparatively erect position of the horns, the fossil agrees with the recent skull of a male in the British Museum (no. 613 d), obtained from Sarepta, even the various measurements in the two cases being almost identical. Whether the less divergent character of the horns in the British Pleistocene type be a racial difference, or whether the same feature be sometimes observed as a merely individual peculiarity in the existing Saiga, cannot be determined from the lack of specimens for comparison. It suffices to add, that a frontal figured by Gaudry (op. cit.), from the Pleistocene of France, agrees in the character just mentioned with the English specimen. As already remarked, the remains of the Saiga are widely distributed in the' French cavern-deposits ; and M . Dupont has recorded evidence of its former range over Belgium2. Being thus well known in the West, it is somewhat remarkable that no remains of the animal have hitherto been definitely described from the wide areas of Germany and Russian Poland intervening between the present limit of its range and its former extension. Prof. A. Nehring, of Berlin, however, is of opinion3 that a careful study of existing collections of Pleistocene bones from the German 1 P. Z. S. 1870, p. 459. 2 E. Dupont, ' L'Homme pendant les Ages de la Pierre dans les environs de Dinant sur Meuse,' ed. 2, p. 187. 3 'Tundren und Steppen' (1890), p. 187- |