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Show 1877.] ANATOMY OF THE RUMINANTS. 13 to bring before the Society on a future occasion, when m y material has become more abundant. In all Old-World Cervidae examined by me, with the exception of the Reindeer, the vomer is not so much ossified as to divide the posterior osseous nares into two distinct orifices, whilst in Rangifer tarandus and all the New-World Deer, excepting Alces machlis and Cervus canadensis, it is so. I have seen most of the skulls of Deer which are to be found in the superb osteological collection of the British Museum ; and it is upon the study of them that this generalization is based. In the following species the vomer is completely ossified behind, so as to separate off the two posterior nares in the macerated skull: Cervus pudu. campestris. columbianus. --- leucurus. Cervus leucotis. antisiensis. virginianus. mexicanus. Neither in Alces machlis nor in Cervus canadensis is the vomer so extended posteriorly. The condition described is represented in fig. 24 which is from the skull of Cervus virginianus. Fig. 24. Base of the skull of Cervus virginianus, from below. In his ** Catalogue of Ruminant Animals in the British Museum,' Dr. Gray lays considerable stress upon the degree of development of the nasal processes of the premaxillary bones, whether or not they meet the nasals. In Rangifer tarandus they do not do so, the gap |