76 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 
and at Cappah, in the County of Waterford, are suggestive in 
many ways with reference to the causes of the destruction of so 
many males, and appear to me to furnish the following suggestive 
data :—All the horns out of many hundreds examined by me 
were in perfection, and indicate the weathered condition of the 
antler during the rutting season, whgn the animal becomes much 
excited and takes readily to water in pursuit of the hind or a 
rival. Now, these lakes in general presented expanses of shallow 
water and muddy shores, where long-legged animals lke deer 
were almost certain to get mired. But the stupendous horns of 
the male Irish Elk, which even in the dried head, weighs some- 
times 90 lbs., must have been a heavy load to carry across a lake 
and struggle against when floundering through the soft yielding 
mud, and they must also have been greatly to its disadvantage in 
the forest, whilst the hind and male after the horns were shed, 
unburdened by their weight would in general make their way 
with much less difficulty. 
After the severance of Ireland from Great Britain an exacerbation 
of the glacial period would have doubtless proved fatal to all the 
large mammals, and an increase in the forests, by which the range 
of the feeding ground of the great horned stag were curtailed 
would also have been greatly to its disadvantage, by compelling 
it to take to the lakes more frequently either from choice or 
compulsion. 
The only recent deer with which Cervus megaceros is closely 
allied is Cervus dama, as pointed out by Cuvier, Owen, and others. 
The discrepancies in relation to the brow antler and positions 
of the terminal snags are nearly constant and distinctive, whilst 
their osteological and dental affinities are in close accord, and 
point towards lost relationships and divergencies during the 
Mid-tertiary and Pliocene periods. 
THE REINDEER (Cervus tarandus.) 
The presence of the Reindeer in Ireland when the Mammoth, 
Horse, Grisley Bear, Wolf, and other mammals sojourned in the 
island is established by numerous well preserved remains from the 
counties of Waterford, Dublin, Limerick, Meath, and Clare. 
1. In point of time the first discovery dates as far back as 1741. 
On that occasion two heads with their horns entire were dug up 
