258 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. vm. 



has since become extinct. Very generally the bones 

 are found in juxtaposition, so as to prove that their 

 possessors had been bogged. In one case Archdeacon 

 Maunsel described in 1825 two heads, with the antlers 

 interlocked in a fight between two bucks, in which both 

 perished. 



Sometimes the Irish elks have been drowned, and 

 their bones distributed by water. In Ballybetagh bog, 

 near Dublin, the heads are frequently found lying to- 

 gether and apart from the rest of the bones of the 

 skeleton, a circumstance which, as Mr. E. J. Moss 1 

 pointed out to me, cannot be accounted for except by 

 the above hypothesis. The rarity of the animal in 

 Britain forms a marked contrast with its abundance in 

 Ireland. It has been discovered in the peaty mud near 

 Newbury, in Berkshire, and in the marl below the peat 

 in the parish of Maybole, Ayrshire. 



The Irisk elk is proved from recent discoveries by 

 Mr. E-. J. Ussher, in a cave near Cappagh, Cappoquin, 

 AVaterford, to have been hunted, as well as the reindeer, 

 by man ; but the age of the strata in which it is found 

 appears to me to be doubtful. The perforated rib in 



1 My thanks are due to this gentleman, and his brother, Dr. Moss, for 

 their courtesy and kindness in having excavations made to show the exact 

 position of the remains in the bog, at the meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion at Dublin in 1878. The bog occupies the site of a tarn, and rests on 

 the boulder clay. Above the latter is a thin layer of blue fluviatile clay, 

 which, as it passes up towards the peat, becomes more and more mingled 

 with black, peaty material. The animal remains rested in and on the 

 blue clay, passing upwards through the peaty mud ; in one case, which I 

 have examined, the antler tips were within six inches of the upper friable 

 black peat. Prof. Leith Adams believes that Irish elks have never been 

 met with in peat bogs. There are, however, many cases on record of their 

 occurrence in peat, and Mr. Kinahan, whose experience in Irish geology is 

 second to none, informs me that they do occur in the Irish peat. 



