244 THE AMERICAN MOOSE 



giganteus or Megaceros hibernicus. Many skele- 

 tons of this animal have been found in the peat 

 bogs of Ireland. Rowland Ward, in his Records 

 of Big Game, describes twenty heads of the Irish 

 elk. One belonging to the Duke of St. Albans 

 measures twelve feet and six inches from tip to 

 tip. A head in the Dublin Museum spreads eleven 

 feet and five inches; it has a palm seventeen inches 

 in breadth, and has eleven points on each side. 

 But these animals were notable chiefly for their 

 antlers: the skeletons indicate a smaller body than 

 that of the moose. *'The moose is the largest 

 animal of the deer family, living or extinct. Even 

 the Irish elk . . . was a smaller animal.'' A 

 skeleton of the Irish elk in the American Museum 

 of Natural History in New York is six feet high 

 at the withers, and the spread is nearly ten feet. 



A restoration of the Irish elk, pictured in Os- 

 born's Age of Mammals, shows an animal with 

 head and body of the wapiti, or red deer, type, 

 rather than of the moose. The characteristic 

 muzzle of the moose, with great prehensile lip, 

 and his short body and long legs are lacking.'' 



Hornaday, American Natural History (N. Y., 19 14), vol. ii., p. 108. 

 " The Age of Mammals in Europe, Asia, and North America, p. 400. 

 Fossil remains of the Irish elk are found in the British Isles, and in 

 France, Germany, Austria, northern Italy, and even Siberia. (Ibid., 

 p. 419.) 



