On the Recent and Extinct Irisk Mammals. 81 
Mr. Busk, who kindly furnished me with various diagrams of his 
graphic representations of recent and fossil teeth of Cervus 
tarandus to compare with the Ivish specimens. 
6. The most extensive collection of remains of reindeer made 
in Ireland is that recorded in my Report of the explorations of 
Shandon Cave, County Waterford. 
The question naturally suggests itself in connexion with the dis- 
covery of so many eacuvice of reindeer in one cavern, inasmuch as I 
surmise the number of individuals to have been between 30 and 40. 
How were they conveyed thereinto? The probability is that 
Shandon Cave was a large and capacious shelter shed, as was 
shown by the finding of remains of nearly an entire mammoth 
and a bear. It might also have been a den for such as wolves ; 
and although no marks of fierce gnawing appear on any of the 
bones, the probability is that the cervine remains were intro- 
duced by them, for unless when pressed by hunger it is not the 
custom of Canidze such as wolves, jackals, and foxes to gnaw 
the bones of their victims, at all events after the manner of 
the hyzena, which has not hitherto been found in a fossil state 
in Ireland. 
I have entered into details with reference to the comparative 
osteology of the Shandon’s bones in my Report alluded to, so 
need not revert tc the subject further than to state that, as far 
as comparisons go, neither in dimensions nor in horn is there 
apparently any distinction to be made between the Reindeer of 
Ireland and that of Great Britain generally, or indeed of Europe 
as far as its latest Tertiary and recent denizens are concerned. 
All belonged to a stock or variety characterized by long slender 
and rounded antlers in contradistinction to the flattened beam 
and more massive horns of the Siberian variety and the great 
Caribou or Woodland Reindeer of Eastern Canada and the Rocky 
Mountains. 
The condition of many of the bones of reindeers found in 
Shandon Cave, along with those of red deer and _ horse 
indicate a more recent period in the history of the cavern than 
is represented by their other remains, met with in the 
breccia along with the mammoth and bear. The strata- 
graphical arrangement of these remains seems to suggest two 
Scren. Proc. R D.S., Vou. 11., PT. 1 G 
