224 AN ANCIENT HAUNT OF THE CERVUS MEGACEROS, ETC. 
Thus far about eighty individuals of the great fossil elk, and one 
reindeer, are represented in the remains recovered from the Ballybetah 
Bog, without any traces of the co-existence of man having been 
observed. But no better locality could be chosen to test the question. 
Lying though this interesting locality does, in such near vicinity to 
the Irish metropolis, it has been left nearly untouched by the hand 
of man within the whole historic period, during which cathedral 
and castle, college, mart, and wharf, have crowded the banks of the 
Liffy. The traces of the primitive architecture of remoter eras have 
thereby escaped defacement. The general contour of the district 
remains little changed. ‘The aspect is wild and savage ; and it requires 
no very great exercise of the fancy to restore the ancient mere, 
reclothe its shores with forests, the buried trunks of which abound 
in the underlying peat, and reanimate them with the magnificent 
herds of the great fossil deer. Here are still the unefaced memorials 
of primitive art. On the rising ground on the south-east margin of 
‘the bog stands a large chambered cairn, which has been rifled ; and 
the exposed chamber shows the megalithic structure characteristic of 
the most ancient works of this class. There is also a circle near it 
formed by an enclosure of stones and earth, which is regarded by the 
natives with superstitious awe. According to the belief of the 
peasants, if their cattle stray into this enclosure they will die. 
Here, then, it is probable that the bed of the neighbouring tarn or 
bog must contain some evidences of the primitive arts of the Cairn- 
builders, with means for determining the relative date of their 
presence there, as compared with the true age of the Cervus mega- 
ceros. A report of the successful operations which rewarded the brief 
labours of the excursion party was made to the executive council of 
the British Association, and steps were taken with a view to a 
systematic and thorough exploration of this favourite haunt of the 
great fossil Irish elk, one of the most remarkable among the fauna 
of Europe’s Paleolithic period. 
