392 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
which, to us Germans, has a softer and less gamey flavour. 
Thompson possessed an antler of the Fallow-deer which had been 
found deep in a peat-bog near Glenravel, Co. Antrim; he does 
not, however, venture to conclude from this that the Fallow-deer 
had ever been a native of Ireland, but speaks rather of Greece, 
where it still occurs in a wild state. Blasius considers that the - 
countries bordering the Mediterranean may be regarded as the 
original home of Cervus-dama. According to Bonaparte, it still 
abounds in Sardinia and Spain. Cuvier received a wild Fallow- 
deer from the forests south of Tunis. Belon found it on the 
Greek Islands.* 
Cervus dama may be seen in the parks of Ireland in herds of 
three hundred or more; the sick and wounded, as has often been 
remarked, are driven away and killed by the stronger stags. 
Damp winters often cause great mortality. 
An antler of the Moose, Cervus alces, has been found in the 
peat near Stewartstown, Co. Tyrone, a discovery all the more 
remarkable from the entire absence of any historical notice of 
the existence of this animal in either England or Scotland.t 
The Roe, which still exists in England and Scotland, is 
absent from Ireland, nor have I heard of any fossil or subfossil 
remains of Cervus capreolus being discovered there. 
To continue the list of terrestrial mammals, no trace of the 
Beaver has yet appeared in Ireland, in spite of the abundance of 
inland waters. It was formerly hunted on the banks of the 
Teivi, in Cardiganshire, for the sake of its fur, but became 
extinct between a.p. 1100 and 1200. 
* The following, from Kloden’s ‘ Fossils of Mark Brandenburg’ (Berlin, 1834, 
p. 83), is worthy of notice :—* I am well aware that the Fallow-deer is not generally 
regarded as indigenous to Germany, and that it is said to have been first 
introduced into Brandenburg by the Elector Frederick William the Great. It does 
not, however, follow that it might not have existed there at a much earlier date; 
fossil remains being found on the Somme, as well as in Sweden and some parts of 
Germany, without taking into account the bone-heaps of Cette, Antibes, &c., in 
which Fallow-deer's bones frequently occur. I have in my possession a large and 
well-preserved portion of an antler from the neighbourhood of Potsdam, that has 
evidently lain long in the ground. It was not found in peat, but in a layer of loam 
or marl.” 
+ Prof. Boyd Dawkins (‘Cave Hunting,’ p. 137)’ writes :—‘‘ The Moose (Cervus 
alces) and the Reindeer are far more abundant in the north than in the south 
of Britain; their remains have been discovered in the neighbourhood of London, 
those of both animals at’ Walthamstow, and those of the latter at Crossness, in Kent, 
on the banks of the Thames.” 
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