MEGACEROS HIBERNICUS. 467 



below the surface of a peat-bog at Hilgay, Norfolk, are 

 preserved in the collection of Mr. Whickham Flower, 

 F.G.S. Antlers of the Megaceros have been disinterred 

 from the marl or gravel beneath peat-bogs in Lancashire. 



The formerly unique skeleton of the Megaceros in the 

 Museum of the University of Edinburgh was obtained from 

 a formation in the Isle of Man, which Mr. E. Forbes, 

 Prof, of Botany in King's College, London, informs me is a 

 white marl, with freshwater shells found in detached 

 masses, occupying hollows in the red marl ; which red marl, 

 by the proportion of marine shells of the species found in 

 the neighbouring seas, is referable to the newer pliocene 

 period. The cervine fossils have never been met with in 

 the marine or red marls in the Isle of Man, but only in 

 the white marls occupying the freshwater basins of the red 

 marl ; and from the position of the beds containing the 

 remains of the Megaceros, Prof. Forbes concludes that this 

 gigantic species must have existed posterior to the elevation 

 of the newer pliocene marl, which is probably continuous 

 with the same formation in Lancashire and at the mouth of 

 the Clyde, forming a great plain, extending from Scot- 

 land to Cheshire, and now for the most part covered 

 by the sea. The geographical features of the dry land, the 

 seat of those lakes in which the remains of the Megaceros 

 are most commonly found, would seem, therefore, to have 

 undergone much change since the time of its extinction. 



Fragments of the huge antlers and other remains of the 

 Megaceros have been discovered in some of the ossiferous 

 caverns in England. A characteristic specimen, now in 

 the British Museum, was obtained by Mr. M'Enery from 

 Kent's Hole ; it consists of part of the upper jaw, with both 

 series of molar teeth ; it precisely corresponds with the 

 same parts in the skull of a Megaceros from Ireland. 



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