68 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The coming of this huge land animal to our island takes 

 us back to still earlier times, but does not necessarily 

 imply any land connection with neighbouring countries. 



The glacial conditions which during the Ice Age 

 overwhelmed the Isle of Man doubtless exterminated all 

 previous forms of life — both plant and animal. Conse- 

 quently after the emergence of the higher part of the 

 island from the waning ice-sheet both fauna and flora 

 must have been re-introduced from the adjoining lands 

 and ultimately from the Continent of Europe. It was 

 about this time that it is supposed that the Irish Elk may 

 have crossed the retreating and melting ice-fields to reach 

 the possibly verdant hills of Man, just as its near relation 

 the Iieindeer is known to traverse the frozen sea north of 

 Siberia, crossing from island to island by ice.* 



Remains of the Irish Elk have now been dug up at 

 several different localities in the Island, as at Balla 

 Lheaney, Andreas ; Ballaterson, Ballaugh ; Close-y-garey, 

 near St. John's ; and Strandhall and Kentraugh in the 

 South. Besides Mr. Jeffcott's instance quoted above, 

 Gumming mentions! the finding of an axe kk with the 

 remains of this animal." Further search may produce 

 still more satisfactory evidence that the elk survived to 

 the period of these peats and forests, and so became a 

 contemporary of our earliest inhabitants of Man. 



If so, not only would it form a connecting link 

 between man and the glacial period in this area, but it is 

 of special interest in that "it is the sole survivor from the 

 Pleistocene into the Prehistoric age, which has since 



* On the other hand, Lomas (Proc. Liverpool Geol. Soc, 1903-4) 

 believes that on the melting of the Irish Sea glacier a low undulating 

 land connection existed between the Island and Lancashire ; and that 

 following the advance of vegetation the Irish Elk may have crossed 

 by means of this lost land. 



f Arch. Camb. XL, 3rd Series, p. 429. 



