W. Williams — The Megaceros in Ireland. 359 



tlie nose of the animal under water and so ended its life. It may be 

 objected, " If this theory be true, we ought to find the shanks of the 

 animal sticking in the stiff clay described." This does not follow. 

 Suppose the animal did remain in this position for a few days, the 

 motion of the waters of the lake, acted upon by the wind, would sway 

 the body to and fro, causing the water to penetrate around the legs 

 of the deer in the tough clay, whilst the gases developed by putre- 

 faction in the animal's body would render it buoyant and tend to raise 

 it bodily off the bottom, whilst the lake, swelled by rain, would add 

 its lifting power and soon draw the legs out of the clay, and the 

 body would be left free to drift before the wind to the lee-side 

 of the lake, its head hanging down would take the ground towards 

 the margin and get fastened by its heavy antlers in the stiff 

 clay, and thus would serve to moor or anchor the whole animal in 

 position till putrefaction had caused the integuments of the neck to 

 separate from the body. 



During the previous 30 years nearly 100 heads, good and bad, 

 had been found in this small bog, and scarcely six skeletons. The 

 question naturally arose : " What had become of the bones ? " One 

 gentleman said that they had been washed down to the centre of the 

 lake, and would be found there. I tried the centre, sinking 13 feet, 

 and all I got was one rib. Another gentleman, more facetious, said 

 that " evidently the animal had the trick of dropping off its head 

 and running away from it." I was greatly puzzled to account for 

 its absence, when one day I remembered that in almost every in- 

 stance I had found the atlas vertebra imbedded beside the head. 

 It at once occurred to me that, being so firmly attached to the back 

 of the skull, it resisted decay longer ; but when the integuments of the 

 neck had sufficiently putrefied, they parted with the strain on them, 

 the axis slipped out of the atlas, it being the least firm point of 

 attachment, and the gas-inflated body floated away, and was carried 

 by the current clean out of the lake to a lower lake or river, or even 

 down to the sea. I believe that this floating theory meets all the 

 requirements and facts of the case. 



• In the Limerick bogs the skeletons, or some portions of them, are 

 often found with the heads ; this is owing to the shallowness and 

 want of current in the lakes in that district; there was not depth 

 enough of water to float away the great carcase with its long legs 

 hanging down. In one instance I found all the legs of one animal 

 with the head : the trunk having apparently floated away. 



Surrounding and overlying the remains we find the brown clay 

 (No. 3) ; it is usually from three to four feet deep, and is, as I have said, 

 a true lake sediment, having a good proportion of vegetable matter 

 interstratified with seams of clay and fine quartz sand, brought 

 down by heavy rainfall from the hills; it seems to represent a 

 genial or temperate climate, such as we have at present. The four 

 feet of deposit seems to represent the time of the reign of the 

 Megaceros in Ireland ; but this, considering the superficial extent of 

 the bog, must contain hundreds of tons of the clay in question, and 

 may represent a long period. Thus it lived, the climate mild, the 



