BRITISH DEER 207 



we call * fawn ' and the fact that this is the old name of the 

 species confirms the view that the dappled variety has always 

 been best known in England, and that the dark phase is a 

 more recent introduction. Their horns are broader in the 

 beam than those of the red deer, and approximate more 

 closely to those of the reindeer and elk. Both these animals 

 once flourished in Britain, as their remains show ; and with 

 them, as the sovereign of all the world's race of deer, roved 



the magnificent Irish elk, which was really a giant fallow 

 deer. This splendid beast stood half as high again as a 

 modern red deer, and the span of its horns is between nine 

 and ten feet across. Very few of the best red deer heads 

 killed for many years past span forty inches. The most 

 abundant and finest heads of the Irish elk have been found 

 buried in or just beneath the layer of peat in Irish lakes and 

 bogs ; but they also occur in England and the south of Scot- 

 land. In some races of fallow deer this broad or palmate 

 form of the horns is almost lost ; it is very narrow in the deer 

 of Epping Forest, which have rather degenerated owing to 

 long isolation. Like red deer, fallow deer principally feed 



