416 
(a very scarce book), expressly states that the (then) an- 
cient Irish used to hunt a large black Deer, the milk of which 
they used as we do that of the Cow, the flesh serving them as 
food, and the skin for clothing. The latter part of which 
statement is somewhat corroborated by a communication of 
the Countess of Moira's, in the seventh volume of the Archae- 
ologia Britannica, of the discovery of a human body in 
gravel, in a bog, under eleven feet of peat, in good preserva- 
tion, and completely clothed in antique garments of hair, 
which her Ladyship conjectured might be that of the Giant 
Deer. Professor Owen, in alluding to this supposition, 
makes the following objection to its probability : — But if 
any Megaceros had perished, and left its body under like cir- 
cumstances, its hide and hair ought equally to have been 
preserved. In reply to this objection, Mr. Richardson 
says : — That it is known that of all animals with which we 
are acquainted, the Deer becomes soonest putrid ; and conse- 
quently the coat would very soon become loose. I cannot 
substantiate this assertion from personal knowledge ; but I 
would respectfully remark that because we do not find the 
bodies of the Deer in equal preservation with that of the 
man alluded to, it does not furnish a conclusive argument 
of the improbability or fallacy of the former suggestion, 
inasmuch as the human and Mammalian remains may 
probably have been deposited under very different circum- 
stances. Those of the Deer, in the majority of cases, 
having fallen into shallow water, either from the effects of 
wounds or natural causes, would be subjected to all the 
vicissitudes of submersion and emergence arising from rains 
and temporary floods, and consequently decomposition would 
commence before being entirely buried up in marl. The man, 
on the contrary, though clothed in a skin garment, had that 
skin doubtless prepared, however rudely, by some process of 
tanning and drying, and might have been suddenly engulphed 
