88 Field and Forest Rambles. 



into the brains of their antagonists * Moreover, I have known 

 several examples of ibexes pushing their rivals over preci- 

 pices.f Reverting to the moose's habit of repairing to lakes 

 and ponds for the purposes above stated, I was informed by- 

 persons who had seen it in autumn browsing on the leaves of 

 water-lilies, that it then constantly plunges its head under 

 water. Now the horn begins to separate about this time, and 

 perhaps the submersion might somewhat accelerate the pro- 

 cess, so that many may drop in the lake, and be preserved in 

 the mud ; indeed it occasionally happens that an individual 

 gets mired, and one example was given me where a woodsman 

 was attracted by the stench of a decomposing moose which 

 he found in a small tarn almost submerged, with only a por- 

 tion of the back above water ; and a similar occurrence was 

 also related of the caribou; thus explaining to some extent why 

 so many Irish elks' remains are met with in bogs. Moreover, 

 there is a further illustration of how the bones of such ani- 

 mals may be preserved for indefinite periods in the case of 

 gypseous marls in Albert county, on the coast of the Bay of 

 Fundy. Here the country is broken up by pot-holes caused by 

 rain ; many forming large pitfalls, which, getting covered over 

 by snow in winter^ an unwary moose or caribou now and then 

 stumbles into the hollows, where it is soon covered up by soil, 

 so that complete skeletons of these animals have been found in 

 digging for gypsum in the above situations. The Indians assert 

 that deer bury their cast antlers, and this is the reason why few 

 are met with in comparison to the number of any one species 

 frequenting a particular locality, and I have often remarked 

 the same absence of fallen horns, in the case of the deer of the 

 Himalayas; but on the other hand we must bear in mind the 

 dense and interminable forest tracts over which these animals 



* A fine specimen illustrative of this may be seen in the Derby Museum, 

 Liverpool. 



t Author's " Notes on the Habits of some of the Mammals of India," 

 Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1858. 



