314 BRITISH MAMMALS 



(males and females) to protect themselves from the ravages of 

 wolves and other carnivorous beasts. 



In winter they feed on such grass as they can find, and 

 on leaves and twigs ; but it is doubtful whether, during the 

 present conditions of disforested England, the fallow deer, if 

 allowed to run completely wild, could survive the winter 

 without starvation. Therefore, in all parks and forests where 

 they are now kept, they are supplied during the winter- 

 time with a certain amount of hay and corn. Fallow deer 

 are very fond of horse-chestnuts, which they eat greedily during 

 the autumn ; standing up on their hind legs to reach the boughs, 

 striking at the boughs with their front feet and horns in order 

 to knock off the chestnuts. This fondness on their part for the 

 fruit of a tree which is a recent introduction from Asia Minor, 

 certainly might suggest to some the idea of the fallow deer itself 

 being an introduction from those parts. But it is quite possible 

 that the liking for this food could be independently acquired ia 

 England. 



Cervus browni. Brown's Fallow Deer 

 This, together with Cervus savini (which may be a varying- 

 form of the same animal), was a fallow deer of the early type, 

 with simpler antlers, which inhabited, at any rate, the east of 

 England during the Pleistocene Epoch. 



Cervus giganteus. The Megaceros, or Gigantic Deer 

 (Also incorrectly known as the " Irish Elk.") 

 This magnificent creature, the males of which stood at least 

 six feet high at the shoulder, is little else than a gigantic develop- 

 ment of the fallow deer type, greatly as it differs in appearance 

 from the fallow deer of our parks. We have had to trace so 

 many examples of the mammalian fauna of these islands, and of 

 Europe, back to Asia for their origin, that it is a gratification 

 to be able to suggest that this culminating triumph of the deer 

 tribe was probably born within the limits of Europe. Neverthe- 

 less, it is not absolutely certain that Siberia may not have been 



