3i8 BRITISH MAMMALS 



may apply the term British to anything that grew up in Ireland). 

 The earliest types of Palasolithic man which reached Ireland 

 from South-west Scotland, or from Wales, probably found the 

 megaceros an easy prey with its unwieldy antlers. The great 

 height of its head above the ground would have made it less 

 observant of things that crept along the ground. No doubt it 

 was done to death (as are big animals in Africa) more by falling 

 into concealed pits, or by huge drives, which sent herds of 

 megaceros tumbling over precipices or floundering into bogs, 

 than by direct attacks on the part of man with his feeble flint- 

 headed arrows, assegais, or axes. A good deal of doubt has 

 been thrown of late on the question as to whether the megaceros 

 survived in Ireland down to the Neolithic period ; but that it 

 did so seems probable, in spite of the absence of that absolutely 

 conclusive evidence which in France (and also, perhaps, in 

 Belgium) shows that the gigantic fallow deer was constantly 

 the prey and the food of primitive man. 



Cervus elaphus. The Red Deer 



The red deer is a member of the Elaphine group, which 

 Includes the grandest species of deer now living, the culmination 

 of the type being, perhaps, the Asiatic or American wapiti. The 

 Elaphine group arose in Asia, perhaps in Central Asia, from 

 some Sikine form similar to those which now exist in China 

 {Cervus sika), Manchuria, and Formosa. The most primitive 

 example of the Elaphine group at the present day is probably 

 Thorold's deer (Cervus albirostris)^ which occurs In Tibet, with 

 perhaps an outlying variety in Turkestan. This form lacks the 

 bez, or second tine, of the antlers. The next most primitive form 

 (in which the heart-shaped patch on the rump so characteristic of 

 this deer Is much less conspicuous in the summer-time) Is the 

 Duke of Bedford's deer [Cervus xanthopygus)} In the Duke of 



^ This word of course means yellow-rumped, because the caudal disc or 

 the large light or white patch on the rump so characteristic of the Elaphine 

 deer is a bright yellow in this particular species during the summer season. 



