200 Explorations in the Bone Cave of Ballynamintra. 
Irisa Eu.x (Cervus megaceros). 
With the exception of the hare and rabbit, by far the greatest number of animal 
remains are referable to this ruminant. 
The most noticeable and interesting features in connexion with its exuviee are— 
Ist. The fractured state of the bones (Plate XIV., figs. 7 and 7a). 
2nd. Evidences of gnawing by large carnivora (Plate XIV., fig. 8). 
3rd, The discovery of human remains and implements fashicned by man asso- 
ciated with the broken bones of this deer and other mammals (Plate XIIL, figs. 10 
and 11). . 
With reference to the solutions of continuity, the remarkable feature is the 
number of long bones split longitudinally, with evidences of violent blows* of per- 
cussion, as evidenced by longitudinal fractures in such as the femur, tibia, and 
humerus ; for there is not a long bone of the Irish elk which has not been split 
lengthways, or reduced to angular splinters. ‘To have accomplished this, great force 
was required, and that force must have been exerted along the long axis of the shaft. 
The absence of the lion and hyena, leaving the bear and wolf as the only large mem- 
bers of the order hitherto identified from Irish deposits, renders it unlikely that they 
could have split the long bones so regularly. The few small cuspidated premolars of 
the bear, coupled with the succeeding broad crowns of the molars, are not suited for 
that continuous penetration and pressure along a surface for which the narrow crowns 
of the teeth of the felidze and hyena, are so eminently adapted. As regards the 
wolf, it may be fairly doubted if that animal possessed the requisite strength of 
jaw for the accomplishment of such a feat, at all events, as regards the femur, 
humerus, and tibia. 
Taking, therefore, into consideration the oblong and rounded stones, battered 
and chipped at their ends by blows, also other stone tools bearing traces of man’s 
handiwork, and strewn about among the Irish elk’s remains, one can scarcely 
doubt but that tle regularity in the mode of fracture was the result of his 
ingenuity for the extraction of the marrow, and possibly also for other objects. 
The following is a table of the bones of the Irish elk, with the beds in which 
they were found. Many pieces of shafts of long bones and other portions of the 
skeleton are indistinguishable in their fragmentary states from similar remains of 
other large ruminants. Besides, not a few were discovered among the material 
after removal, having been overlooked during the excavations. 
* The bones of the Irish elk and other mammals, when recovered from subturbary deposits and 
exposed to the air, are apt to crack in the direction of the long axes, but the ‘sun-cracks” rarely pene- 
trate the entire thickness or extend throughout the entire’ length of the bone, nor is there the splintering 
into fragments which the above exhibit generally, 
