Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/16

x out of the lacastrine shell-marl beneath the peat or bog-earth." Now, T believe, from what I myself saw and heard in Ireland and what has lately been written by Mr. Richardson, that this is not quite a correct statement of the case : the bones occur in a recent deposit (called with what propriety I know not, "calcareous tuffa") which rarely contains shells, and never any other than recent species ; which always overlies the marl and sometimes overlies the peat. To this it must be added that the bones are almost invariably found in apparently artificial excavations, and in close proximity to the so-called raths or Danish forts.

Add to these facts that "the marrow in some of the bones although changed into spermaceti [?] blazes like a candle,"* that "the car- tilage and gelatine, so far from having been destroyed, were not apparently altered by time:"f that Archdeacon Maunsell actually made soup of the bones, and presented a portion thereof to the Royal Dublin Society : that the bones are frequently used for fuel : and that on the occasion of the rejoicings for the battle of Waterloo, a bonfire was made of these bones, and it was observed they gave out as good a blaze as those of horses, often used for such pur- poses : X and we shall surely find it very difficult to resist the evidence now adduced by Messrs. Glennon and Nolan, that these creatures not only existed in Ireland to an indefinite period after it was peopled by man, but that they were systematically, I might almost say, scientifically, slaughtered for his use.

At the first cursory glance, it may appear somewhat strange that the skulls of the males should invariably have been found entire, and that even the recent discovery at Lough Gûr should form no excep- tion. I do not, however, find any difficulty here : in the first place we may fairly suppose that the males, like our bulls, were not equally prized as food : in the second place, the size, as well as the position of the antlers, would render it next to an impossibility to give the desired blow with the poleaxe : in the third place, the greater

'Fossil Deer of Ireland,' by John Hart, Dublin, 1825, p. 8.

'Reports of Analysis,' by James Apjohn.

Hart.