1624 Quadrupeds. 



mer of these theories is an embodiment of niy own opinions — the latter 

 represents those of Professor Owen. 



Two estimable and well known citizens of Dublin, Messrs. Nolan 

 and Glennon, both enthusiastic in their researches after fossil remains, 

 found recently at Loch Gur, in the vicinity of Limerick, a quantity of 

 such remains, including the skulls of various animals, among which 

 were two or more of the extinct gigantic deer, and these skulls, those 

 of the deer included, presented marks of violence on the frontals, as 

 if they had been knocked down by the axe of some butcher of olden 

 time. 



The fact of the skulls of the deer having been found under such 

 circumstances, was of course confirmatory in the highest degree of my 

 opinions : demonstrating the deer to have not only existed contempo- 

 raneously with man, but to have been probably numbered among his 

 domesticated animals, and, at all events, to have been slaughtered for 

 food. Of course, whatever support was afforded to my theory by this 

 singular discovery, was calculated to tell, with fatal effect, against that 

 of Mr. Owen ; and your having been kind enough to state your con- 

 viction of the correctness of my views, in the article already alluded to, 

 called forth that letter from Professor Owen, to which it is my present 

 purpose to reply. 



A wide difference subsists between the skull of the male and female 

 of the gigantic deer : the latter being destitute of horns, and the fore- 

 head of the former being furnished, from one temple to the other, with 

 a solid ridge of bone, several inches thick, designed apparently to give 

 support to those vast weapons, whose weight, in many specimens, ap- 

 proaches to ,one hundred pounds. The forehead of the male being 

 thus protected, it was of course impossible that he could be felled by 

 a blow of a butcher's axe ; nor would the attempt have been safe, when 

 his enormous power, and the formidable horns with which he was 

 armed, are taken into consideration. To the slaughter of the female, 

 however, no such obstacles presented themselves. 



T am stating these circumstances for the sake of making my readers, 

 in the first instance, so far acquainted with the actual form and cha- 

 racter of the skull of the animal, as will enable them to form a correct 

 estimate of the question at issue. 



I now come to these individual skulls commented upon by Profes- 

 sor Owen. Previous to Mr. Nolan's leaving this country for London, 

 he was kind enough to offer these skulls to my inspection, when I at 

 once pronounced them to be the skulls of FEMALES : and further stated 

 my conviction, that the fracture of the frontal bones had been the el- 



