136 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
ancient Reindeer of Great Britain was not relatively so large as 
many individuals now liviug. The bones found in English 
caverns, and that of Shandon, in Ireland,* were fragmentary, 
and had evidently been dragged there by predaceous animals. 
There are, however, two splendid heads, almost entire, from the 
bog marls now in the museum of the Royal Dublin Society, one of 
which has been already referred to in connection with the discovery 
of the skulls and bones of the Giant Deer; the other, and more 
perfect of the two, is from a neighbouring locality among the 
Dublin mountains. 
As known to us at the present time, the Reindeer is associated _ 
with an Arctic climate. It is, however, still not uncommon in 
North America as far south as New Brunswick, and was even 
common lately in the forests of New England, latitude 40°. But 
doubtless the climate of our islands in former days was much 
colder than at present; indeed, the same may be said of Central 
Europe, inasmuch as Reindeer remains have been found in the 
caverns of the South of France. 
There are no ruminating animals more given to extensive migra- 
tion than many varieties of the living Reindeers of North America 
and Asia, so that their northern and southern limits frequently 
include many degrees of latitude. They are easily hunted down, 
and consequently soon exterminated from particular tracts. 
Tue Rep Deer, like the Roebuck, the Mole, and the Water 
Rat, is one of the few survivors of the extensive list of mammals 
which inhabited Great Britain during the Pliocene epoch—i.e. the 
epoch which immediately preceded the glacial period. Their 
pedigrees, therefore, are as ancient as any in the land—at all 
events, so far as the discovery of fossil relics is concerned; but in 
all probability neither of the two first-named would have survived 
but for the protective influence of man. 
Remains of the Red Deer are met with in peat and superficial 
soils; in clay and marl below the latter; in more ancient cavern 
deposits, associated with relics of nearly all the extinct and several 
living species, as well as in estuaries and river deposits, said to 
have been formed before the glacial epoch. The bones and horns 
* Shandon Cave, near Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, where bones of upwards of fifty 
individuals have been found associated with those of the Wild Horse, Mammoth, 
Red Deer, Wolf, Bear, and Fox.—Eb. 
