64 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Aeudemy. 



most remarkable features of this cave. Antlers and bones of Eed Deer are 

 very abundant in the Irish peat deposits. The skeletons of this deer have also 

 been discovered in the underlying marl, in which the Irish Giant Deer remains 

 are so numerous. 1 



All the Irish caves hitherto examined, viz., the Shandon and Ballina- 

 mintra caves, the Kesh and Co. Clare caves, have yielded remains of the Red 

 Deer; and, according to Professor Leith Adams 1 (p. 82), the latter was 

 contemporaneous in Ireland with the Mammoth. In all the caves just 

 alluded t" Red Deer and Reindeer were associated in the same stratum; and 

 there can be no doubt at all that those two deer inhabited Ireland at the same 

 time. Why, then, should Red Deer remains be absent from this cave ( I 

 think only two theories are admissible. The deposits of this cave may have 

 been laid down altogether prior to the appearance in Ireland of the Red Deer. 

 In this rase we d me that the Mammoth and Reindeer continued to 



live in this country long after the formation of the cave and its deposits. Or 



nay suppose that this cave was always surrounded by many miles of open 

 meadow land tenanted only by Mammoths, Irish Giant Deer, and Reindeer, 

 whereas the r frequented only the wooded districts. The latter view 



appears to me the more probable one. At the present day we find com- 

 paratively Few animals scattered uniformly over the country. Most species 

 inhabit certain areas which yield the kind of food suitable to their require- 

 ments, and the 1.' ntially a forest-loving animal. 



Giant Dkkb oh Ieisb Elk (Cerviu giganteus). 



The Irish Gi Irish Elk occurred in fifteen different places in 



tin- cave. Among the bones that were identified, there was a somewhat 

 water-worn shed antler-fragment, which may have been washed into the cave 

 by a stream. In the case of a similar occurrence in the Edeuvale caves I 

 rly Mai ied the antler into the caves. But 



in t ■ other indications of the presence of Man 



during the time the deposits wen- laid down. In the Castlepook Cave some 

 of the n bones of the Irish Elk < M.D. 35 and 225) were split in such 



a manner as • -i that the process had been performed by early Man for 



the purpose of extracting the marrow. No othei traces of Man's con- 

 temporaneousness with the Irish Elk having been discovered in this cave, 



ighton, J.: "Observations on the fossil Red Deer, founded on the skeletons 

 found at Bohoe. in the County of Fermanagh, in 1863." Journ. Geol. Soc., Dublin, 



Vol. V 18 



3 Adams. A. Leith: "On recent and extinct Irish Mammals." Scient. Proc. 

 R. Dublin > N.8 toL ii, pp. 45-66. 1890. 



