314 Dr Hibbert on the History of the Cervus Euryceros, 



the title of Segh, which he has found in an Irish glossary to 

 signify not only an ox, but a deer of the moose sort. Profes- 

 sor Goldfuss again supposes, that this Cervus was known to 

 German hunters of the olden time under the name of the 

 Schelk ; and he quotes the lines of an ancient poem, in which 

 a hero, Sifrid, is made to slay a bison, an elk, four uri, and a 

 schelch : 



Dar nach schluch er schiere einen wisent und einen elch 

 Starcher Ure viere, und einen grimnaen Schelch.* 



In Munster's time, we are informed by him in the German 

 edition of his work, that the animal was esteemed good game for 

 eating ; but in the Latin copy he has lauded the venation more 

 strongly. " Caro ejus dicitur esse ex nobiliori venatione :" 

 adding, that the hoofs were in estimation for medicinal pur- 

 poses, being good for the falling sickness. 



Regarding the mode in which the animal was hunted and 

 dispatched, we have little or no information. We should be 

 led to suspect, by the term grimmen Schelch, that he was con- 

 sidered as a formidable object of the chase. Munster says 

 that his skin was with difficulty cut through or stabbed. Mr 

 Hart has supposed that the Irish wolf dog was his natural 

 enemy : but Mr Whittaker is rather inclined to confine the 

 fierce and fleet talents of this individual to the pursuit of the 

 red deer ; fixing at the same time upon a huge Lancashire 

 dog, formerly known under the name of the Kibble hound, as 

 the ancient antagonist of the British moose deer.-J* His argu- 

 ments are founded upon the supposed slowness of the motions 

 of the Cervus, and the corresponding slowness of his pursuer ; 

 upon the great bulk of the game, and the corresponding size 

 of the chacing foe ; upon the fierceness of the English moose 

 deer, and the proportionable strength of jaws manifested by 

 the Kibble hound. " The formidable armoury," says this 

 author, " which the segh carried about him in his branching 

 antlers, required the segh-dog to be at once animated with a 



• I have not had an opportunity while writing this paper of consulting 

 the work of Professor Goldfuss alluded to ; being indebted for this quota- 

 tion to Mr James Wilson, in his excellent Illustrations of the History of 

 Domesticated British Animals. See the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture. 



i* The breed is, I believe, lost. It is celebrated by the poet Drayton. 



