218 AN ANCIENT HAUNT OF THE CERVUS MEGACEROS ; 



Islands with the continent already worn away, or had man already 

 crossed over from England to Ireland 1 They knew that man had 

 existed in England probably before England was separated from the 

 continent." 



But, whatever be the final determination on this interesting ques- 

 tion of the co-existence of Man and the Cervus megaceros in Ireland, 

 tlie bones of the latter are recovered there in enormous quantities, 

 not infrequently in a condition admitting of their being even 

 now turned to account for economic uses ; and examples have un- 

 doubtedly been found there bearing unmistakeable evidence of human 

 workmanship. One of the most interesting of these was an imperfect 

 Irish lyre dug up in the moat of Desmond Castle, Adare, and ex- 

 hibited by the Earl of Dunraven, at a meeting of the Archaeological 

 Institute in 1864. The relic was of value as a rai-e example of the 

 most primitive form of the national musical instrument ; but greater 

 interest was conferred on it by the opinion pronounced by Professor 

 Owen that it was fashioned from the bone of the Irish Elk. 



In weighing such evidence it is manifestly important to keep 

 prominently in view the fact already referred to, that the bones 

 and horns of the fossil deer are recovered in a condition not less fit 

 for working by tlie modern turner and carver than the mammoth 

 ivory or the bog oak, which are now in constant use by them. 

 In the Goat Hole Cavern at Paviland, Glamorganshire, Dr. Buckland 

 noted the discoveiy of large rings or armlets and other personal 

 ornaments made of fossil ivory, lying alongside of a human female 

 skeleton, and in near proximity to the skull of a fossil elephant. The 

 tusk of another fossil elephant, recovered at a depth of twenty feet 

 in the boulder clay of the Carse of Sterling, is now preserved in 

 the Edinbui-gh University Museum, in the mutilated condition in 

 which it was rescued from the lathe of an ivory turner. This, so far 

 as Scotland is concerned, is an exceptional example of the manufac- 

 ture of fossil ivory, but we are very familiar with the fact that the 

 tusks of the Siberian mammoth have long been an article of commerce. 



In a paper " On the Crannoges of Lough Kea," by Mr, G. H. 

 Kinohan, of the Geological Survey, read before the Royal Irish Aca- 

 demy in 1863, he describes a fine head of the Cervus megaceros found, 

 along with abundant evidences of human art, in a large crannoge on 

 Lough Rea. It measured thirteen feet from tip to tip of its horns ; 

 but Mr, Jukes suggested the probable solution of its discovery under 



