220 AN ANCIENT HAUNT OF THE CERVUS MEGACEROS ; 
the extinct mammalia, of which evidence of their familiarity to 
the men of the Neolithic period is abundant. It is indeed worthy of 
note that, while the ingenious artists of central Europe’s Reindeer 
period have left wondrously graphic carvings and drawings of the 
mammoth, the fossi] horse, and of the reindeer and other. cervide, 
no very clearly recognizable drawing of the great fossil deer has been 
found. It has indeed been assumed to be the subject of more than 
one representation of a large horned deer, but the identification is at 
best doubtful. This is all the more noteworthy, as the characteristics 
of the great deer are such as could not fail to attract the notice of an 
artist capable of so successfully representing the salient features of the 
reindeer, as illustrated in familiar engravings of it, such as that from the 
Kesserloch, Schaffhausen, traced on a piece of one of its own antlers. 
If the engravings assumed to represent the Cervus megaceros are 
indeed efforts at its depiction, their less definite character may be due 
to the rarer opportunities for studying an unfamiliar subject. 
But if, as Sir W. R. Wilde, says, no native Irish name has been dis- 
covered for the great fossil deer, an ingenious identification of it has 
been assumed with one of the objects of the chace referred to in the 
Niebelungen Lied. There, after the hunter has slain a bison, an elk, 
and four strong uruses, he crowns his feats with the slaying of a 
fierce schelch. It is no sufficient argument against such identification 
that the poem abounds with allusions to fire-dragons, giants, pigmies, 
and other fanciful creations. The ‘lusty beaver,” the elk, “ the ravin 
bear,” and other contemporary, though now extinct, animals of Scot- 
land, are introduced in the fanciful vision of “The King’s Quair:” 
‘‘ With many other beasts diverse and strange.” 
But any reasons adduced for identifying “the fierce schelch” of 
the Niebelungen Lied as the Cervus megaceros are sufficiently 
vague and slight ; and so far the watured opinions of archeologists 
appear to coincide with those of the geologists, that this extinct 
deer did not coexist with man in Ireland. 
But, whatever be the ultimate conclusion as to the period of its final 
disappearance there, no doubt is entertained as to this extinct 
deer having been contemporaneous with paleolithic man in western 
Europe, and even in England. Only two or three traces of its 
remains have been found in Scotland ; and if in Ireland—seemingly 
its latest special habitat, —it had finally disappeared before the advent 
of man there ; the results are significant in reference to the period of 
