PALEONTOLOGY 



PUBLISHED records of the occurrence of remains of mammals from 

 the superficial deposits of Lancashire appear to be comparatively few, 

 and many which have come under the writer's notice are of interest 

 from an historical rather than from a zoological point of view. 

 Sir Richard Owen, 1 for instance, called attention to the discovery of a large 

 antler of the red deer (Cervus elaphus] in 1727, which was drawn out of 

 Ravensbarrow Hole, adjoining Holker Old Park, entangled in a fisherman's 

 net. A sketch of this specimen was transmitted to the Royal Society of 

 London by Hopkins, and is reproduced in the Philosophical 'Transactions? 

 Although the terminal branches of the crown are broken off, this antler 

 measures 30 inches in length ; the basal circumference being 10 inches, and 

 the length of the brow-line 1 6| inches. The tide flows constantly over the 

 spot where this specimen was found, and the adjacent land is high. 



The antlers attached to the skull of another stag of the same species 

 discovered beneath a peat-moss in another part of the county, and figured by 

 C. Leigh in his Natural History of Lancashire , Cheshire ; and the Peak of Derby- 

 shire (1700), are equally fine, each measuring 40 inches in length. Red-deer 

 antlers are also recorded from Preston, and they have been likewise found in 

 several other parts of the county. 



Other cervine antlers recorded by Leigh as having been obtained from 

 the marl beneath the peat between Martin's Mere and Meols (now North 

 Meols) have been identified with the great extinct Irish deer, or ' Irish Elk ' 

 (Cervus giganteus), 3 such remains being stated by Mr. C. E. de Ranee 4 to be far 

 from uncommon in the county. From shell-marl underlying the peat near 

 Whittingdon Hall the antler of a reindeer (Rangifer tarandus} is said to have 

 been obtained ; 6 while remains of the great extinct wild ox, or aurochs (Eos 

 taurus primigenius) , are recorded from Preston. During the excavation of 

 Preston Docks a number of mammalian remains were discovered. Accord- 

 ing to Mr. E. Dickson (Proceedings Liverpool GeoL Assoc. v. 258, 1887) they 

 included 30 pairs of red deer antlers and 50 odd ones, 25 aurochs' skulls, 

 two skulls of the domesticated Celtic shorthorn, one skull of a pilot-whale 

 (Globicephalus me/as), and two whale-vertebras. 



The skull of a hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius major), said to 

 have been found in the county under a peat-bog, is figured in Lee's work, 

 the figure being reproduced in plate xxii. fig. 5 of Buckland's Reliquicz 

 Diluviana? 



Mammalian remains of late Pleistocene age have been found in some 

 abundance on the Cheshire side of the mouth of the Mersey 7 and a few are 

 recorded from the Lancashire bank. Mr. G. H. Morton, 8 for instance, 



Brit. Toss. Mamm. and Birds, 473 (1846). s Vol. xxxvii. No. 422. 



Owen, op. cit. 467, and De Ranee, 'Superficial Geology of Liverpool' (Mem. GeoL Survey, 1877), 77. 

 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxvi. 668 (1870). 6 Harting, Extinct British Animals, 65. 



Owen, op. cit. 401. ^ Moore, Trans. N. H. Soc. Lane, and Cheshire, x. 265 (1858). 



Geology of Country round Liverpool, ed. 2, 250. 



31 



