401 
The Gigantic Irish Deer, (Megaceros Hibernicus) more 
familiarly known as the Irish Elk, from the earliest discovery 
of its remains haviDg been made in Ireland, and being still 
found there in greater abundance than in any other part of 
Europe, was first described by Dr. Molyneux in the Philoso- 
phical Transactions for 1697 — since which period its bones 
have been discovered in various parts of this Kingdom, as 
also in France ; but in no locality in such a state of perfec- 
tion, or in such numbers as in Ireland and the Isle of Man. 
No specimens have hitherto been found in Scotland. South 
Shields is the furthest part in the North of England where 
fragments were found, beneath 12 feet of clay, in a brick- 
field, during the month of July, 1854. But if, from the 
Isle of Man, we pass to Lancashire, we find their bones 
occur in greater abundance than in any other part of 
England. Portions of the skeleton of this animal have been 
found in Essex, Devonshire, Norfolk, and Yorkshire ; but in 
every case these have been few and scattered. It is less 
abundant in France than in England, but extends into Ger- 
many along the Rhine, and in a southern direction as far as 
the plains of Lombardy. The first instance, however, as I 
have stated, of which we have any record of its exhumation 
in England, was at Cowthorpe, near Wetherby, in the West 
Riding of Yorkshire, in 1744, when a fine head and horns, 
weighing 68 lbs., were found at a depth of six feet in a Peat 
Moss. These horns were supposed not to have arrived at 
their full growth from the circumstance of their being 
still covered with the velvet coating, a fact of considerable 
importance as bearing upon the principal object of this 
paper. 
The first point to which I call attention is The proofs of its 
recent extinction. 
The most conclusive argument, in favour of the recent 
existence of any animal whose remains have been exhumed, 
