214 AK ANCIENT HAUNT OP THE CErVuS MEGACEROS ; 



It beai's a near affinity to the Irish elk ; they co-existed under similar 

 circumstances, and even at times in the same localities. All three 

 were contemporaneous with the Ursus spelceus, the FeUs spelcea, and 

 other great post-pliocene carnivora ; and their remains abound in the 

 ancient cavern haunts of those extinct beasts of prey. 



The cave-bear and the Irish elk appear to have been limited to a 

 temperate range, and haA^e both become extinct ; and the remains of 

 the latter occur in such abundance in recent deposits that there is a 

 strong temptation to assume the occurrence of some sudden change, 

 climatal or otherwise, which abruptly exterminated this great fossil 

 deer. The Urus and the Reindeer were both in existence in Britain 

 within historic times ; whereas the evidence thus far adduced in proof 

 of the co-existence there of the fossil elk with man, pertains exclu- 

 sively to the palseolithic period ; and in so far as Ireland is concerned, 

 where its remains occur in greatest abundance, the conviction 

 is reluctantly forced on us that the great Irish deer had finally 

 disappeared from its fauna before man made his appearance there. 

 This, however, as will be shown, is not an opinion even now univer- 

 sally accepted, either by archaeologists or geologists. 



In the post-pliocene age the cave lions, bears, and hysenas, of 

 Germany, France, and the British Isles, preyed on the Irish elk, 

 along with the reindeer, mammoth, wooly rhinoceros, the fossil 

 horse and ox ; and the bones of all of them occur among the cave 

 deposits in which traces of primitive art reveal the early presence of 

 man. Professor Boyd Dawkins in his record of researches in the 

 Somerset caves, in 1862-3, mentions the remains of the Irish Elk as 

 35 in number, where those of the Mammoth, the Reindeer and 

 the Bison numbered 30 each, the Rhinoceros 233, the Horse 401,- 

 and the cave Hyaena 467 ; while thirty-five implements or other 

 evidences of human art suggested the contemporaneous presence of 

 man. Remains of the Megaceros have in like manner been identified 

 in the Devonshire Caves ; and especially in Kent's Hole Cave in the 

 same strata with flint and bone implements. Its bones are included 

 among the specified contents of the famous sepulchral cave of 

 Aurignac, at the northern foot of the Pyrenees ; and its remains 

 have been recognized in seventeen •different cave deposits to the 

 north of the Alps ; in eleven of which there are indications of the 

 presence of palieolithic man. 



