38 GUIDE TO THE FOSSIL MAMMALS AND BIRDS. 



Pier-case are contemporary genera from the Siwalik Formation of 

 Stand 1ST. 



Fig. 28. — Front view of skull of an extinct Giraffe-like animal (Sivatherium 

 gigcmteum), from the Lower Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills, India ; one- 

 thirteenth nat. size. (Stand N.) 



Pier-ease The deer, or Cervidse, were as widely distributed in the 

 Table-eases Pleistocene period as at the present day, and some of the 

 9, 10. European species at that time possessed the largest known 

 Stands Q, antlers. The great Irish deer, Cervus giganteus, is especially 

 remarkable in this respect, the antlers of the male often 

 measuring slightly more than nine feet across and exhibiting 

 a considerable expansion. This animal (Fig. 29) is sometimes 

 termed an elk, but the shape of the nose and the presence of 

 a brow-tyne on each antler show that it is a true deer. The 

 male alone bears antlers, and reconstructed skeletons of both 

 sexes from Irish peat-bogs are mounted on stands Q, E, in 

 the middle of the Gallery. Several skulls and antlers, to 

 show their variability, are placed on the top of the Pier-cases, 

 and there are also skulls with jaws in Pier-case 15. The 

 remains are especially common in the marl at the bottom of 

 the Irish peat-bogs, where the animals seem to have perished 

 when the present bogs were either swamps or lakes; and 

 there is evidence that they were not all exterminated in 

 Ireland until comparatively late prehistoric times. During 

 recent years several specimens have been dug up in the Isle 

 of Man, and these probably date back to the time before the 

 Irish Sea was formed. During the Pleistocene period numerous 



