Extinct British Deer 
3 
Indefatigable labourers in the held of science, such as Owen, Geikie, and others, have 
shown us in their interpretation of the earth’s crust — an interpretation now universally 
accepted—that between the two great glacial periods there existed a warm “ snap,” for what 
duration of time we know not, but the presumption is that it lasted many thousands of years. 
During this period the atmosphere over the greater part of Europe—even to the Arctic 
Regions—must have been throughout the year equable, and perhaps even warm, since we 
have abundant evidence that certain plants and trees then existed which are naturally associated 
with southern latitudes. Remains of palm-trees have been found so far north as Greenland, 
whilst in Great Britain the luxuriance of the foliage is clearly indicative of a semi-tropical 
climate. This interesting age, with its abundance of animal and vegetable life, is all the 
more wonderful because it followed an epoch of Arctic barrenness and desolation. 
The intense cold of the first glacial period was due (as Hugh Miller tells us) to the action 
of immense glaciers which passed over a large portion of Northern Europe and America, 
“ scoring the rocks in their track, planing down the surface of the land in some places, and 
scooping out hollows in others which afterwards formed great lakes.” To-day this is shown 
in the lower boulder clay, above which is the clay or shell-marl, in which evidence of the 
temperate or interglacial period is abundantly found. 
It is at this time of “ sands and gravels ” that the mighty creatures of the earth roamed 
through Europe and the Americas, our own islands being especially favoured. The Siberian 
mammoth ranged across Northern Europe, the mastodon in North America, the megatherion 
and mylodon in South America, great kangaroos in Australia, and moas in New Zealand ; 
while the mammoth, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, cave bear, lion, hyena, wolf, and gigantic 
Irish deer roamed at large in England. There are also certain proofs that palaeolithic man 
existed in England and on the Continent, though not in Ireland, where megaceros seems to 
have been the only representative of the great mammals. 
I must not, however, go further into the history of these great creatures, but confine 
myself to the Cervidae which inhabited our islands at this period. These are as follows : 
(1) Red deer ( Cervus elaphus ) and gigantic round-antlered deer ( Strongyloceros spelaeus ), 
(2) Brown’s deer ( Cervus Browni), (3) Gigantic Irish deer (. Megaceros hibernicus ), (4) 
Roebuck ( Cervus capreolus) , (5) Reindeer ( c Tarandus rangifer). 
With the exception of the red deer and the roe, all these species are now extinct, but 
there is reason to suppose that the reindeer survived in Caithness till the middle of the 
twelfth century. The red deer and the roe are discussed at length later on. In this chapter 
I shall deal mainly with those no longer existing in our islands. 
[Red Deer ( Cervus elaphus ) and Gigantic Round-antlered Deer ( Strongyloceros 
spelaeus ).—In Great Britain the red deer, next to the reindeer, seems to have been the com¬ 
monest. Some of the earliest examples of horns of this species might lead us to suppose that 
another great animal akin to the prehistoric wapiti of America existed in these islands. From 
two splendid fragments of horns and a piece of lower jaw from Kent’s Hole, Torquay, Owen 
evolved a species which he calls “the gigantic round-antlered deer [Strongyloceros spelaeus')” 
but I do not for a moment think that this will hold good. The measurement which he gives 
of the base of the best of these two pieces of horns (now in the British Museum) is 15 
inches—a circumference which would certainly signify something beyond past or present 
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