1592 Quadrupeds. 



vincing proof ever laid before the British public, that this splendid 

 animal was domesticated by man for his use and food, and was 

 driven by him in company with herds of other cattle to a common 

 slaughter-house, otherwise how came these skulls mixed up with those 

 of other cattle, evidently brought together to be slaughtered in the 

 way now adopted. 



On showing the handles of knives made of the horns of the fallow- 

 deer, several gouge and chisel-shaped instruments, and also broken 

 earthen vessels, to Captain Croker of Ballinagar, he told us that he 

 had seen spear-heads, swords, and other instruments, found in the 

 ruins of forts and castles near his residence ; and Captain Roberts of 

 Sallymount, in the county Kildare, informed us that he has in his 

 estate several of those mounds which, in this country, are called Danish 

 forts or raths ; and that last summer, when removing the earth from 

 one of these which is larger than the rest, and has a covered way to 

 it, he found many bones and skulls of the giant deer, together with 

 broken horns of the same animal, and the skull of a man, with a hole 

 in it something resembling holes made by a musket-ball.* Near Cap- 

 tain Robert's residence are many holes, like small sand-pits or quar- 

 ries, and into these, the bones and horns of the giant deer had been 

 promiscuously thrown : I have seen specimens taken out of these 

 holes, within two hundred yards of the Captain's residence. I will 

 also add, that Major Thomas Walker, of the county Wexford, a gen- 

 tleman of first-rate talent, and an indefatigable naturalist, has 

 obligingly handed me the following memorandum. " A portion of the 

 leg of the Irish giant deer, dug up in his own estate, is in the pos- 

 session of H. Grogan Morgan, Esq., of Johnstown Castle, county 

 Wexford, with a portion of the tendon, and skin with hair upon it : it 

 was exhibited some time ago by Mr. Peel at his veterinary lectures in 

 Dublin."— Tlios. Walker. 



In Pepper's History of Ireland, in which the battle-grounds of the 

 contending kings and warlike chieftains, together with the number of 

 cattle taken by one marauder from another, are faithfully chronicled ; 

 Lough Gur is particularly noticed. 



In a country like Ireland, cut up as it then was by internal warfare, 

 and by the frequent visits of the Danes, it does not seem wonderful 

 that so large and ponderous an animal as the giant deer should 

 entirely disappear and become extinct. From its large bulk it could 

 not elude the marauder or the hunter. 



* This similarity must be accidental. — Ed. 



