390 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
On the coasts north of Connemara the little short-horned 
cattle of the country are driven into the mountains, but only stay 
there during the summer season. Even at the present day the 
cow plays an important part in the dowry of a daughter of the 
country, representing coin to a certain extent, as with the 
ancient Romans, whose money, pecunia, was derived from pecus, 
cattle. The Red-deer is still found among the mountains round 
Killarney and in the wild parts of Connaught, such as Erris and 
Connemara, though it is certainly disappearing from Ireland. 
Such Irish Stags as I saw were little weak animals; the Irish 
Wild Boar is also said to have decreased in size.* I know of no 
other reason for this degeneration than the breeding in-and-in 
within the restricted area of an island, and the selection for 
slaughter of the largest and finest animals. If the remaining 
representatives of the Irish Cervus elephas are not resuscitated 
by the importation of new blood, their race will die out, sooner 
or later, without the assistance of the bullet. Climbing Mangerton 
Mountain, I was offered a piece of an antler as a great curiosity, 
the enormous price demanded for it being some indication of the 
animal's rarity, even at Killarney. Ireland was formerly cele- 
brated for its fine Red-deer. Venerable Bede, who died in the 
year 735, refers to Ireland (Eccles. Hist. lib. 1, cap.1) as “ Insulam 
cervorum venatu insignem.” According to Payne (‘Brief Descrip- 
tion of Ireland,’ 1589), there might be bought there, ‘‘a fat pigge, 
one pound of butter, or two gallons of new milk for a penny; 
a reade-deare without the skinne for 2s. 6d.; a fat beefe for 13s. 4d.; 
a fat mutton for 18d.” Camden also, in his ‘ Britannia,’ states 
that the County Mayo was rich in cattle, red-deer, hawks, and 
honey ; and that the mountains about Lough Esk (Donegal) were 
overrun with deer. Nor was the race degenerated in the Bronze 
Age, as proved by the giant Red-deer (not Cervus megaceros) found 
in the bogs, especially around the lake-dwellings in Ballinderry 
Lake, County Westmeath; at that time too frequent breeding 
in-and-in was evidently not prevalent. 
In Scotland, deer are also becoming scarcer, and diminishing 
in size. From England they have almost entirely disappeared ; 
at present they are only found in a wild state in Martindale, 
* The author writes under the impression that the wild boar still exists in 
Ireland, but it has long been extinct throughout the British Islands.—Ep. 
