Until Baron Cuvier published his account of these remains[420], they were generally believed to have belonged to the same species as the moose deer or elk of North America, an opinion which appears to have been first advanced by Dr Thomas Molyneux in 1697[421], and which depends principally on the exaggerated description of that animal given by Josselyn in his account of two voyages to New England, published in 1674, in which he states that it is sometimes twelve feet high, with horns of two fathoms wide! This was the more readily believed by the learned Doctor, as it tended to confirm him in a favourite theory which he seems to have entertained, that Ireland had once been joined to the New Continent. But the assertions of Josselyn regarding the size of the American moose have not been confirmed by the testimony of later travellers, from whose observations it is now clearly ascertained that the only large species of deer inhabiting the northern parts of America are the wapiti or Canadian stag (_Cervus canadensis_), the rein-deer (_C. Tarandus_), and the moose or elk (_C. Alces_). The peculiar branching of the brow antlers of the rein-deer, and the rounded horns of the wapiti[422], are characters sufficient to prevent us confounding either of these animals with the fossil species. The palmate form of the horns of the elk gave greater probability to the opinion of its specific identity with the fossil animal. A little attention, however, to a few circumstances, will shew a most marked difference between them. First, as to size, the difference is very remarkable, it not being uncommon to find the fossil horns ten feet between the extreme tips[423], while the largest elk’s horns never measure four feet. This measurement in a pair in the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society, is three feet seven inches: the largest pair seen by Pennant in the house of the Hudson’s Bay Company, measured thirty-four inches[424]. The horn of the elk has two palms, a lesser one which grows forward from the front of the beam, where the principal palm begins to expand. This is called brow antler by Cuvier, but it corresponds in situation rather to the sur-antler, there being, properly speaking, no brow antler attached to the root of the beam. The elk has no posterior antler similar to that of the fossil animal, nor does its beam take a similar arched direction, but runs more directly outwards. Cuvier remarks, that the palm of the fossil horn increases in breadth as it extends outwardly, while that of the elk is broadest next the beam. The palm of the elk’s horn is directed more backwards, while the fossil one extends more in the lateral direction. The antlers of the elk are shorter and more numerous than those of the fossil animals.