410 
country was one immense forest, and great part of the 
remainder was one uniform surface of bog. The Deer could 
not subsist in the dense forests, the asylum of its foes, and 
which its large antlers prevented it from entering. The 
obliteration of the lakes, and the growth of peat in those 
situations where the drainage is imperfect, would, therefore, 
gradually narrow the domain of the Gigantic Deer. But 
while thus diminishing his means of subsistence, it would 
also limit his means of escape from danger; while the chances 
of being immersed in the semi-fluid peat and marl would 
every day increase. In consequence of this, great num- 
bers would sink in the bogs and there perish. The 
destruction of the Deer by this means would not result 
merely from its own inattention, but whole herds, urged by 
their fears, would thus be destroyed in attempting to escape 
from their pursuers. Dr. Mantell says, groups of skeletons 
have been found crowded together in a small space, with 
the skulls elevated and the antlers thrown back upon the 
shoulders, as if a herd of Deer had fled for shelter, or been 
driven into a morass, and perished on the spot* 
In the year 1847, while a new watercourse was being cut 
through the bog at Ballybetagh, in the parish of Kiltiernan, 
thirty heads, horns, and bones, of the Gigantic Deer, besides 
those of the Rein-deer, were found within a space of one 
hundred yards in length by four yards wide, imbedded under 
the turf, in a vegetable compost containing leaves and grass. 
Now this large number, in so limited a space, also seems to 
point to the sudden destruction of a herd by submersion. 
From the circumstance that the remains of the Megaceros 
almost invariably occur in marl, Dr. Hibbert conjectures, that 
the majority of the animals, whose bones are there found, may 
have perished from natural causes, rather than from violent 
means, as he remarks that pools in which marl is apt to accu- 
* Petrifaction and their Teachings, p. 456. 
