246 
EXTINCT MONSTERS. 
in the Limerick bogs heads and skeletons were often found 
together. In that district the lakes were probably shallow and 
with but a feeble current, and so the body never floated away. 
This explanation by Mr. Williams seems satisfactory. 
He reports that the female skulls were rarely met with. Either 
they were more timid in swimming lakes, or, having no antlers, 
they may have succeeded in getting out, or the care of their 
young ones may have kept them out of the lakes during the 
summer months. The clay in which the remains occur is suc- 
ceeded by another bed of pure clay, which Tiever yields any skulls 
or bones. This, Mr. Williams thinks, was deposited at a time 
when the climate was more or less severe, and the musk-ox, 
reindeer, and other arctic animals came down from more northern 
regions, even down to the south of France. He concludes that 
this period marks the extinction of the Great Deer in Ireland, 
whether rightly or wrongly it is hard to say. Many observers are 
inclined to think that it lived on to a later period. An interest- 
ing fact, having some bearing on the question, is this : that the 
bones in some cases even yet retain their marrow in the state of 
a fatty substance, which will burn with a clear lambent flame. 
Evidence such as this seems to point to a more recent date for 
its extinction. 
Steller's Sea-Cow.^ 
The Sirenia of the present day form a remarkable group of 
aquatic herbivorous animals, really quite distinct from the 
Cetacea (whales and dolphins), although sometimes erroneously 
classed with theni. In the former group are the Dugong and the 
Manatee. These creatures pass their whole life in the water, 
inhabiting the shallow bogs, estuaries, and lagoons, and large 
rivers, but never venturing far away from the shore. They browse 
‘ For fuller information, see the Geological Magazine^ decade in, yol. ii, 
p. 412, Paper by Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S. 
