Quadrupeds. 1621 



I am induced to communicate to you one of the conclusions to 

 which I have arrived, after inspecting the series of skulls of oxen, pigs, 

 and the extinct deer obtained from Loch Gur, near Limerick, by Mr. 

 Nolan, to whose attention I am indebted for the view of so interesting 

 a collection. 



I limit myself, on the present occasion, to the notice of the remains 

 of the Gigantic Extinct Deer, which you describe [See Zool. 1593, &c] 

 as " two female skulls, fractured on the frontals in precisely the same 

 manner as those of the cattle," and which are described by Mr. Glen- 

 non — in the Dublin Evening Post, of November 14th, 1846, as "two 

 of the undoubted skulls of the female giant Deer, agreeing in every 

 respect with the male head, except in the want of horns. , ' 



The conclusion to which I arrived, after a careful comparison of 

 these skulls with unmutilated skulls of the male and female Megaceros, 

 in the presence of Mr. Nolan and another gentleman, is, that they 

 do agree in every respect with the male head, except in the want of 

 horns, which have been broken off, together with a portion of the fron- 

 tal bone from which they grew, leaving that wide vacuity in the upper 

 wall of the skull cavity, which has been conjectured to have been pro- 

 duced by the act of slaugtering the animals, in the same manner as 

 the butchers of the present day do, by breaking in the frontal bone by 

 some heavy instrument. 



If I am right in my conclusion, that the skulls in question belonged 

 to the male sex, and not to the female, of the Gigantic Megaceros, the 

 improbability that a male of that species could have been killed by a 

 blow between the horns, or that any human strength could have driven 

 in a large piece of the frontal bone at that part, will be obvious to 

 every anatomist, who knows that the skull of the male Megaceros is at 

 that part specially strengthened, in subserviency to the support and 

 wielding of the horns, by an enormous thickening of the frontal bone, 

 forming a transverse bar of dense osseous matter, four inches in thick- 

 ness. But nothing is more likely to happen than that, in the attempt 

 to break off the antlers from the skull, the transverse connecting ele- 

 vated portion of the frontal bones between the bases of the antlers 

 should be wrenched away with them, leaving a wide central perforation, 

 with splintering of the surrounding part of the skull, extending to the 

 post-orbital processes; and this is precisely what has happened, in my 

 opinion to the two skulls in question. But it may be asked, why, 

 when the antlers have disappeared from the skulls, I should dissent 

 from the opinions of Messrs. Nolan and Glennon, that these skulls be- 

 longed to the female. My reasons are the following : — 



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