GREAT IRISH DEER—STELLERS SEA-COW. 243 
wider, and heavier. In some cases the antlers have measured 
more than 11 ft. from tip to tip. The body of the animal, as 
well as its antlers, were larger and stronger than in any existing 
deer. The limbs are stouter, as might be expected from the 
great weight of the head and neck. Another and more striking 
feature is the great size of the vertebrz of the neck; this was 
necessary in order to form a column capable of supporting the 
head and its massive antlers. (See Plate XXV.) 
The first tolerably perfect skeleton was found in the Isle of 
Man, and presented by the Duke of Athol to the Edinburgh 
Museum. It was figured in Cuvier’s Ossemens Fossiles. Besides 
those already mentioned at South Kensington and Dublin, there 
is one in the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge. 
It cannot be doubted that, like all existing deer, the animal 
shed its antlers periodically, and such shed antlers have been 
found. When it is recollected that all the osseous matter of 
which they are composed must have been drawn from the blood 
carried along certain arteries to the head, in the course of a few 
months, our wonder may well be excited at the vigorous circula- 
tion that took place in these parts. 
In the Red Deer the antlers, weighing about 24 lbs., are 
developed in the course of about ten weeks; but what is that 
| compared to the growth of over 80 lbs. weight in some three or 
four months ? 
It is a mistake to suppose that the remains discovered in 
Ireland were found in peat; they occur not in the peat, but in 
shell-marls and in clays under the peat. This is an important 
point. for if the remains were found in the peat, they 
would prove that the Great Deer survived into a later period; 
instead of being (as is believed from geological evidence) con- 
temporary with the Mammoth and Woolly Rhinoceros in this 
country, and then disappearing from view. As already stated, 
it existed on the Continent, and may there have been exter- 
minated by man. 
