354 ^^* Barker's jtlccount of a 



Though the horns are fo much larger than thofe of any ftag 

 I have ever feen, yet, from the futures in the ikull appearmg 

 very dlftni(5l In it, one would fuppofe that it was not the head 

 of a very old animal. 1 have one of the horns nearly entire, 

 and the greatefl: part of the other, but fo broken in the getting 

 out of the rock, that one part will not join to the other, as the 

 parts of the other horn do. The horns are of that fpecies 

 which park-keepers in this part of the country call throftie-neft 

 horns, from the peculiar formation of the upper part of them, 

 which is branched out into a number of fhort antlers which form 

 an hollow about large enough to contain a thrufli's neft. I fend 

 you the dimenfions of the different parts of them, compared 

 with the horns of the fame fpecies of a large ftag, which have 

 probably hung in the place from whence 1 procured them two 

 or three or perhaps more centuries ; and with another pair of horns . 

 of a ditFerent kind, which are terminated by one fingle pointed 

 antler, and which were the honis of a feven-year-old ftag. 



The river Larkell runs down the valley, and part of it falls 

 into the quarry where thefe horns were found, the water of 

 which has not the property of incrufting any bodies it paffes 

 through. It is therefore probable, that the animal to which 

 thefe horns belonged was wafhed into the place where they 

 were found, at the time of fome of thofe convulfions which 

 contributed to raife this part of the iftand out of the fea. Be- 

 fides this complete head;, I have feveral pieces of horns, bones 

 (particularly the fcapula I mentioned above), and feveral ver- 

 tebrae of the back, found in the fame quarry ; fome, if not all; 

 ©f them probably belonging to the animal whofe head is in my 

 poiTeffion-. 



