6 
British Deer and their Horns 
From the large number of heads that have been dug up in Ireland alone, we conclude that 
the species must have been very abundant in later Pleistocene and prehistoric times. This 
is easily accounted for in the case of Ireland from the fact that (with the exception of 
wolves) it can have had scarcely any natural enemies amongst the larger carnivora, and in 
England, Scotland, and Western Europe it is doubtful if creatures like the great cave tiger 
and the cave bear could be considered formidable enemies when the question of speed is 
taken into consideration. 
As before remarked, the gigantic Irish deer lived in the warm interglacial period, 
and the extraordinary annual growth of antler attests to the luxuriance and abundance of 
pasturage in those times. In the British Isles the deer seem to have been most numerous 
in Ireland, where remains are found below all the bogs in the lacustrine shell-marl. In 
County Limerick the greatest number of heads has been dug up, notably in the extinct 
lake of Loch Gur, where literally hundreds of them have been unearthed. In 1875 
Mr. R. J. Moss made excavations in the bog of Ballybethag, nine miles south-east of Dublin, 
and was so successful that Mr. W. Williams, the Dublin naturalist, was induced to make 
similar researches in the same locality during the summers of 1876 and 1877. He too was 
equally fortunate, twenty-six heads and three complete skeletons being the result of his 
digging. From that date to the present time no one has been so successful as Mr. Williams 
in recovering the heads and horns of this great deer, and I think it is not too much to say 
that the vast majority of the specimens now in British collections owe their presence there to 
this indefatigable searcher. Below the great bog in the vicinity of Tullamore is another 
productive district, as is also the margin of Loch Derg (County Galway) and Killowen 
(County Wexford). 
The first tolerably perfect skeleton of the megaceros was found in the Isle of Man, 
and was presented by the Duke of Atholl to the Edinburgh Museum. 
In England the remains of this great deer are rare. Owen tells us that the first skull 
and antlers were dug out of the peat moss at Cowthorpe in Yorkshire. There are also 
evidences of its having existed at Walton in Essex and Hillgay in Norfolk and in the peat 
bogs of Lancashire ; whilst complete heads and antlers have recentlv been found in the 
south-west of Scotland. Lartet, the French naturalist, observes that the habitat of this 
animal seems to have been much more contracted than that of the mammoth, and he tells 
us that its remains are found in France westward only to the foot of the Pyrenees. In the 
valley of the Oise, M. L’Abbe Ed. Lambert has found it associated with Elaphus primigenius, 
Rhinoceros tichorhinus, hippopotamus, reindeer, and musk ox. 
In Germany the remains have been found as far east as Silesia, and the caves of the 
Altai denote the extreme eastern limit of the ascertained range of this animal. 
Most of the heads are found at a depth of from 5 to 9 feet—not in the peat itself, 
as is generally supposed, but in the shell-marl. Professor Ball, in his description of the 
Fossil Mammalia of Ireland, tells us that they have been recovered from the shell-marl under 
50 feet of peat. 
Their position is generally ascertained by means of probing irons, which are forced into 
the earth until the position of the head and antlers is discovered. The profession of the 
man who has been employed by Mr. Williams to search for them is probably unique. By 
