Quadrupeds. 



8521 



heads,— in fact, they are nearly the smallest, though themselves gigantic, — and the 

 points are crowded on these two heads like thorns on a bush, and not much larger. 

 But there are heads in that room which take one's breath away. The largest head has 

 only twenty-four points, but is 7 feet wide in the spread, and the points are all 

 18 inches and upwards! There are many heads with thirty, thirty-two, thirty-six, 

 forty-two and forty-five points, all gigantic; and I assure you that that big specimen of 

 mine would look like nothing by them. As the measurement stands, it is 5 feet 

 5 inches from outside to ontside. The big head at Moritzburg is 7 feet inside, and 

 each horn over 4 feet long. There is nothing like them that I ever saw, and I believe 

 nothing in the world like them ; but when I tell you that an Irish elk's head, which is 

 in the next room to them (it is a fair specimen, but I have seen much larger), looks 

 quite small by them, you may imagine what they are. Not only the number of points 

 is wonderful, but the strength and thickness of horn. Many of the points are over 

 2 feet long, and I am sure, if some of the heads were put on the ground, they would 

 stand 6 feet high, or more. I have set an artist to work to sketch me the whole col- 

 lection, each head on a separate page; it will make a curious and valuable book. 

 I bought a head at Berlin, which would look small by these, but still measures 4 feet 

 7 inches wide between the horns, has nineteen long points, and the horn is so thick 

 that I cannot grasp it with two hands. Another, with sixteen points, 3 feet 7 inches 

 wide, is also a splendid head. I have picked up some wonderful roe-deer heads at 

 Prague and Berlin, four or five of them having horns each 18 inches long, with ten 

 points, five on each horn, besides many deformed ones. I will show you all these 

 curiosities when I return. I hope to pick up more in Austria. I bought a fine 

 deformed head here to-day, with thirteen points, very curiously formed and very large; 

 and I am about another, which is most wonderful : it is a deformity, but I have so 

 many large heads now that I value deformities more than monsters, unless the latter 

 are something quite above the common. I bought, at Prague, a roe head, which I do 

 not think the man knew the value of: I never saw one quite like it; it is all grown 

 together in a mass like a honeycomb : the animal was found dead, so probably it was 

 the result of some disease. There are some other curious ones, and one or two much 

 larger than any roe heads of Scotland : I believe they are mostly of great age, killed 

 two or three hundred years ago. I saw a collection belonging to the Prince Augustus, 

 of Wurtemburg, at Berlin, and there were some marvellous heads, both of red deer 

 and roe, in it. He had two roe heads grown in a mass, and I believe he paid nearly 

 £150 for one of them ! I saw one at Ratisbon of the same kind, belonging to a 

 brewer, who asked £100 for it, but then he had shot the beast himself. I mean to go 

 down to Pesth and Belgrade, in Hungary, and I hope to find something wonderful 

 there, as that is the country for these things: they are all bought up from there by 

 the dealers in these towns, and therefore, if there is anything curious, it is as well to 

 get them first hand. There are deer here, in the Prater, or Park of Vienna, which 

 I have often seen, with eighteen, twenty, twenty-two and twenty-four points. — Lord 

 Powerscourt, in a letter to F. T. Buckland, published in the ' Field' of April 11, 

 1863. 



[The particular pair of horns to which Lord Powerscourt refers, in the beginning 

 of this communication, was exhibited for some weeks in the window of the 'Field' 

 office, and was a very attractive object. — Edward Neivman.'] 



VOL. XXI. 2 E 



