Atlantic as "elk." It also is of mixed character in relation to the two
great divisions we have had in mind, but in a different way from
reindeer.

Like American deer it has the lower ends of the lateral metacarpals
remaining, and the antlers are without a brow-tine, but like
_Cervus_ it has an incomplete vomer, and unlike deer in general,
the antlers are set laterally on the frontal bone, instead of more or
less vertically, and the nasal bones are excessively short. The animal
of northern Europe and Asia is usually considered to be distinct from
the American, and lately the Alaskan moose has been christened _Alces
gigas_, marked by greater size, relatively more massive skull, and
huge antlers. Of the antecedents of _Alces_, as in the case of the
reindeer, we are ignorant. The earlier Pleistocene of Europe has yielded
nearly related fossils,[2] and a peculiar and probably rather later form
comes from New Jersey and Kentucky. This last in some respects suggests
a resemblance to the wapiti, but it is unlikely that the similarity is
more than superficial, and as moose not distinguishable from the
existing species are found in the same formation, it is improbable that
_Cervalces_ bore to _AIces_ anything more than a collateral
relationship.

[Footnote 2: The huge fossil known as "Irish elk" is really a fallow
deer and in no way nearly related to the moose.]

Even to an uncritical eye, the differences between ungulates and
carnivores of to-day are many and obvious, but as we trace them back
into the past we follow on converging lines, and in our search for the
prototypes of the carnivora we are led to the _Creodonta_,
contemporary with _Condylarthra_, which we have seen giving origin