MEGACEROS HIBERNICUS, 467 
below the surface of a peat-bog at Hilgay, Norfolk, are 
preserved in the collection of Mr. Whickham Flower, 
F.G.S. Antlers of the Megaceros have been disinterred 
from the marl or gravel beneath peat-bogs in Lancashire. 
The formerly unique skeleton of the Megaceros in the 
Museum of the University of Edinburgh was obtained from 
a formation in the Isle of Man, which Mr. E. Forbes, 
Prof. of Botany in King’s College, London, informs me is a 
white marl, with freshwater shells found in detached 
masses, occupying hollows in the red marl ; which red marl, 
by the proportion of marine shells of the species found in 
the neighbouring seas, is referable to the newer pliocene 
period. The cervine fossils have never been met with in 
the marine or red marls in the Isle of Man, but only in 
the white marls occupying the freshwater basins of the red 
marl; and from the position of the beds containing the 
remains of the Megaceros, Prof. Forbes concludes that this 
gigantic species must have existed posterior to the elevation 
of the newer pliocene marl, which is probably continuous 
with the same formation in Lancashire and at the mouth of 
the Clyde, forming a great plain, extending from Scot- 
land to Cheshire, and now for the most part covered 
by the sea. The geographical features of the dry land, the 
seat of those lakes in which the remains of the Megaceros 
are most commonly found, would seem, therefore, to have 
undergone much change since the time of its extinction. 
Fragments of the huge antlers and other remains of the 
Megaceros have been discovered in some of the ossiferous 
caverns in England. <A characteristic specimen, now in 
the British Museum, was obtamed by Mr. M‘Enery from 
Kent’s Hole ; it consists of part of the upper jaw, with both 
series of molar teeth; it precisely corresponds with the 
same parts in the skull of a Megaceros from Ireland. 
HH 2 
