Giant Fallow Deer 135 



other European countries. In Ireland remains of hinds are much less 

 common than those of stags, and it was accordingly at first supposed that 

 both sexes were antlered. Probably the cause of the much greater abund- 

 ance of male skeletons is due to the antlers becoming entangled in roots 

 or on snags, and thus preventing the carcases from being washed away. To 

 support the enormous weight of the antlers, the neck-vertebras of the stags 

 are of very large proportionate size. Although the beam of the antlers is 

 very frequently directed at first outwards, the pedicles arise from a ridge on 

 the skull in a nearly vertical direction after the manner of other species of 



Fig. 35. — Skull and Antlers of Irish Race of Giant Fallow Deer. From a specimen in the British Museum. 



the genus Cervus, so that there is no resemblance in this respect to Alces ; 

 from which the species also differs in regard to the lateral metacarpal bones 

 of the fore-limb. In the presence of a brow, trez, supra-trez, and back- 

 tine to the antlers, the species resembles Brown's fallow deer, to which 

 animal the closest approximation is made by one variety of the German 

 race, in which the antlers are directed more upwardly than usual, and the 

 supra-trez is situated very high up (Fig. 36). Whether the giant fallow 

 deer had a dappled summer coat like its living relatives, can, unfortu- 

 nately, never be determined. The maximum development of the antlers 

 occurring only in Western Europe, is a fact paralleled by the case of the 

 red deer. 



