1594 Quadrupeds. 



raation, that in this lake had been found many fossil remains, and, as 

 we need scarcely remark, this being their favourite pursuit, proceeded, 

 after the termination of the show, to inspect the spot. We may 

 also observe that we had the pleasure of accompanying them. 



We exhumed various skulls and bones, among which we may men- 

 tion those of oxen, pigs, goats, the red deer, and the extinct Irish gi- 

 gantic deer; and, we believe, for the first time in Ireland, the rein- 

 deer, &c, but found none of sheep — a singular fact, and going, we are 

 of opinion, far towards furnishing an inference, that, at the period 

 when those deposits were formed, the sheep had not as yet become 

 one of our domestic animals. The quantity of the remains of goals 

 deserves attention, the name of the lake " Lough Gur " (or Gour), sig- 

 nifying, in Irish, " Lake of the Goals.'"'' 



Among the heads of oxen, some were chiefly remarkable on account 

 of their prodigious size, others on account of their singularity of for- 

 mation, but that which more immediately interested us was, that we 

 found several skulls of a short-homed breed of cattle, similar, in size 

 and form, to those animals which are now so highly prized among us, 

 on account of their superiority over other varieties, but which we 

 are compelled to resort to England in order to obtain. 



Here, then, in this vast depository of bones, we discover sufficient 

 evidence to prove that we, in olden time, possessed the true short- 

 horned variety of cattle, if we can judge by the skeleton heads, which 

 we are now compelled to import from the sister country ; and we are 

 almost authorized to infer, that it was to Ireland that England her- 

 self was originally indebted for the stock from which the "pure" 

 short-horns are descended. Most of these skulls were fractured on 

 the frontal bone, evidently with some blunt instrument, showing that 

 they had been felled and slaughtered for human use, and also that, in 

 the days of old, butchers followed pretty much the same mode of 

 slaughtering that they do now. The discovery of these remains de- 

 monstrates another and a particularly interesting fact, viz., that the 

 Irish giant deer, sometimes improperly termed the Irish elk, was co- 

 existent with these short-horned cattle, was itself a domesticated ani- 

 mal, and was itself killed for human use ; for we have to add the ex- 

 traordinary fact that, amongst other fragments, we found the remains 

 of several giant deer, and, amongst others, two female skulls fractured 

 on the frontals in precisely the same manner as those of the cattle. 

 We have the more pleasure in mentioning this fact from the circum- 

 stance that it confirms, in the most unanswerable manner, the posi- 



