1!3() Dr Hibbert on the Remains of' the Scandinavian Elk 



part of the present Number, relative to the circumstances un- 

 der which the fossil elk is discovered in the Isle of Man. I 

 have this day, as you requested, seen Mr Seton, who has been 

 so kind as to put into my hands the letters which he has re- 

 ceived from Mr Burman of Douglas. I learn from them, 

 that the relics of another animal, apparently of the present 

 race of elks which inhabit the north of Europe, have been 

 recently found in the marl of Ballaugh, being the same site in 

 which the remains of the extinct Irish elk have been found. 

 This is a very curious fact. It also gives an additional de- 

 gree of support to the view which I have taken, that the cir- 

 cumstance of animals of the deer kind being very frequently 

 discovered enveloped in shell marl, bears some reference to the 

 habits of the living animal. Thus the older naturalists, who 

 had the best opportunities of learning the habits of the Swe- 

 dish elk when he was much less rarely found than at the pre- 

 sent day, affirm, that he usually frequented wet marshes. 

 " In locis pal^^hus," says Aldrovandus, " sese plurimum 

 condit, illic et partus edit siios." The Irish elk (as the ani- 

 mal is usually named) had probably similar habits, as it is in 

 the sites of lakes and pools now obliterated, that his remains 

 are usually found.* 



I find that Mr Burman has not, in his communication to 

 Mr Seton, delineated the actual horn of the unextinct species 

 of elk which was found at Ballaugh, but that of a recent ani- 

 mal of the same kind which was brought from Norway, -the 

 relic being in his possession ; but he adds, that the fossil horn 

 which he saw, (the discoverer of which would not part with 

 it,) exactly resembled in form the one which he has represent- 

 ed by the pencil. This, at a single glance, will be found to 

 be perfectly unlike that of the large fossil Irish elk. -f- 



" In Lancashire, where the bones of the Irish elk are more rarely met 

 with, they have been discovered under no other circumstance. Whittaker, 

 in his History of Manchester, records, that in the commencement of the 

 seventeenth century, remains of the elk were dug up in the low flat country 

 through which the Ribble flows, as at Larbreck near Preston, and at the 

 Meales, which form the mouth of this river. A very large elk was also 

 fished out of the sea in the year 1727 at Cartmel. There has been here 

 much low land, that, at comparatively a recent period, has been invaded 

 by the ocean. 



t See Plate II. Fig. 'J. 



