FOSSIL ELK OF IRELAND. 495 



outwards and backwards : it is obtuse and thick, and its 

 length is two feet six inches. From the anterior and ex- 

 ternal borders of each palm there come off six long point- 

 ed antlers. None of these are designated by any parti- 

 cular name. The number of the antlers of both sides 

 taken together is twenty-two. 



The surface of the horns is of a lightish colour, re- 

 sembling that of the marl in which they were found ; 

 they are rough, and marked with several arborescent 

 grooves, where the ramifications of the arteries by which 

 they had been nourished during their growing state were 

 lodged. The horns, with the head attached, weighed 

 eighty-seven pounds avoirdupois. The distance be- 

 tween their extreme tips in a right line is nine feet two 

 inches. 



Head. The forehead is marked by a raised ridge 

 extended between the roots of the horns ; anterior to 

 this, between the orbits and the root of the nose, the 

 skull is flat ; there is a depression on each side in front 

 of the root of the horn and over the orbit, capable of 

 lodging the last joint of the thumb, at the bottom of 

 which is the superciliary hole, large enough to give pas- 

 sage to an artery proportioned to the size of the horns. 

 Inferior to the orbit we have the lachrymatory fossa, 

 and the opening left by the deficiency of bone common 

 to all deer, and remarkable for being smaller in this than 

 in any other species. 



Below the orbits the skull grows suddenly narrower, 

 and the upper parts of the nasal bones become contract- 

 ed by a depression on either side, at the lower part of 

 which is the infra-orbitar hole. The opening of the 

 nares is oval, being five inches long by three broad, the 



