■Revietvs — J. G. MilJak — British Beer. 135 



proflnctive district, as is also the margin of Loch Derg (Co. Galway) 

 and Killowen (Co. Wexford). 



" The first tolerably perfect skeleton of Megaceros was found 

 in the Isle of Man, and was presented by the Duke of Athole to the 

 Edinburgh Museum in 1820."^ In 1896 a second, nearly perfect, 

 example of Megaceros was obtained near Poortown in the same 

 island. (See p. 116.) 



In England the remains of this great deer are rare. The first 

 skull and antlers were dug out of the peat-moss at Crowthorpe in 

 Yorkshire. About twenty-nine localities are recorded, but the 

 remains are exceedingly fragmentary. In France its remains are 

 said to have been found near the foot of the Pyrenees ; in the 

 valley of the Oise it has been found associated with the mammoth, 

 the rhinoceros, the musk-ox, the reindeer, and hippopotamus. 

 There is one skull with imperfect antlers in the British Museum 

 from as far east as the Government of Orbowschen, ii\ Russia. 

 Complete heads and antlers have recently been found in the south- 

 west of Scotland. 



There is good evidence for the conclusion that after the great 

 deer had spread into Ireland, and probably long before its extinction 

 in this country or in Western Europe, Ireland must have become 

 isolated from England, and during a long succeeding period 

 the Cervus giganteus lived and flourished in that island, and 

 was neither exterminated there by prehistoric man nor by 

 any of the Carnivora, but by a great and gradual change which 

 took place in the climate of that country. This change, in 

 which Scotland and a part at least of England also partook, was 

 an increase in cold and a settled humidity of climate, tending to 

 a great growth of peat, which in time filled up the former extensive 

 fresh-water lakes, once so abundant, and injuriously affected the 

 forest growth over large areas of the country. With this change 

 the great Irish deer died out ; but its remains show that it was living 

 there before the growth of Sphagnum or bog-moss had taken place, 

 for they rest in the shell-marl beneath the peat. This shell-marl is 

 really composed of the accumulated deposit of dead and decomposed 

 shells of fresh-water Uitio, Auodoii, and Limncea, so that it repre- 

 sents a long and tranquil period of time during which conditions 

 were favourable to forest growth, and consequently to the deer and 

 the other denizens of the woods and waters. 



We give a diagram-sketch by Mr. Millais of the way the Irish 

 deer occurs beneath the peat (see Woodcut). The man who searches 

 for the megaceros-heads uses a rod about 25 feet in length. First of 

 all he takes a survey of the bog, and from long experience knows 

 where to commence his probing in what seems a likely spot. Should 

 the iron strike stone or gravel, he knows by the gritty feel, whilst 

 horn gives a dull thud, and by turning the rod round and round the 

 searcher is able to tell of what nature is the substance he has struck. 



1 TMs skeleton from the Isle of Man was described by Baron Cuvier in bis 

 " Ossemens Fossiles," tome iv, pi. viii, tig. 1. 



