952 



THE UNGULATES, OR HOOFED MAMMALS 



middle of the length. The two species are, however, very closely allied, and will 

 freely breed together. The Persian species appears to be always spotted. 



In this place may be noticed two extinct deer from the superficial 

 deposits of Europe, which appear to be nearly related to the fallow 

 deer, although of course it is impossible to tell now whether they had 

 spotted or uniformly-colored coats. The first and largest of these is the gigantic 

 Irish deer (C. giganteus}, often, but incorrectly, spoken of as the Irish elk, in which 

 the widely-palmated antlers were larger and more massive than in any other species. 

 In this magnificent deer the antlers have a short and nearly cylindrical basal portion 

 of the beam, given off almost at right angles to the axis of the skull. Above the 

 burr there is a descending brow-tine (#) which is flattened and generally forked. 

 As soon as the beam expands it gives off from the front edge a trez-tine (c~), and 

 nearly opposite to it, on the hinder edge, a back-tine (^), corresponding to 

 the one similarly situated in the fallow deer. Above these tines the antlers expand 



ANTHERS OF THE IRISH DEER. 



(From Nehring.) 



to their fullest width, and generally terminate in five or six snags, of which the top- 

 most have a nearly upright direction. In unusually fine examples the antlers of the 

 Irish deer may have a span of over eleven feet from tip to tip, and the height of the 

 animal may be fully six feet at the shoulder. 



Although the Irish deer takes its name from the common occurrence of its re- 

 mains in the bogs of Ireland, it is by no means confined to that country, but is 

 found in the caverns and superficial deposits of England and parts of Scotland, as 

 well as on the Continent, where its range extends from Italy in the south to Russia 

 in the north. That the Irish deer lived within the human period is proved by the 

 occurrence of its remains in association with some stone implements. It has, indeed, 

 been considered that the word Schelk, which occurs in the Nibelungenlied of the 

 thirteenth century, refers to the Irish deer, but Professor Nehring is of opinion that 

 it more probably means either an elk or a wild stallion. 



The Irish deer differs considerably from the fallow deer in the form and direc- 

 tion of its antlers, but a connecting link between them is found in Ruff's deer 



