and we can guess; that any large animal, when floating (particularly one with so heavy a
head ■ the beast in questioj^ would nat|gjallysjssume such a position in the water when
decomposition set in.
There is no evidence that the megaeeros survived the glacial period and existed
within historic times. Neither C d | ^ P l in y , nor Tacitus mentions such a creature.
And now as to the heads | S these gigantie animals. Without »Joing into a scientific
explanation as to the precise form o f amfjfer annually throwni|jit, I may say that the horns
.. ,no5t closely resemble those o f its modern representative, the fallow buck, except that the
points emanate from the anterior and terminal margin o f the horns, insteadfj^ssuing from
the posterior margin.
The weight o f an adult megaeeros head is about 70 lbs. Owen, however, gives the
big head presented by Archdeacon Maunsell. to fh e Royal Dublin Society as g y lbs,
f jird u p o is , and there can be little doubt that,, owing to the a c t i o n » time, the horns
themselves weigh somewhat less now than .a t the moment- o f the animats death. How
marvellous, then, must have been the physical strength o f the; p ic tu r e that could throw
outg teh arniass , matter in the short p e r& ® f fou r months, for the horn-growth
o f the megaeeros doubtless followed the same rules as those which govern the horn-growth
o f other deer.
Very interesting is it to the «jturalist to the horn-growth in deer from their
earliest youth till they reach maturity andjitommerice to decline ; but, so far as I know,
no one h S th o u g h t it worth while -to collect the whole series o f this great deer’s head!
•Owen gives examples H two immature hpj|j| the first cif which,Opposing it toVfollow the
.course o f the fallow buck, would seem to be that o f an animal that has already shed its antlers
twice, for the fallow buck does n o t S o w the; fVCck point until the iiiird pair is thrown out.
To this -senes ofijSir Richard Owen’s, in which he includes tile fine Dublin head as
an adult,||| can now add figures o f (i) a s ig ll l example o f abnormal bifurcation in the III o f the Dublin Museum, an d jy jljth e h e at -of w h a fS s apparently a very old
jnimal going back. . In the c a s e j j the latter the horns are Hot broken, as the reader may
think at first glance,, but are thosJ|)f a beast which was seemingly loo old to complete
i,s full horn-growth. I have seen .several such heads, but the present example (in the
i f jbileqtion o f Sir Edmund Loder at L e o n a rd s le e^ S remarkably fine one (p. io | v : :
Well, these heads are so huge and splendid that any man who is fortunate enough
to possess a fair specimen may be -forgiven for imagining it to be better than it really is. '
The average man sSes but few o f iih|IS heads, and it Jgbnly by inspecting a very large
number, and constantly using the all-levelling tape, that an expert can pick out the one
or two genuine monsters.
Some heads there are which on paper look extraordinary, one in Ireland spanning
no less than 13 feet, but then to form a right judgment o f a megaeeros head we must
take into consideration other points besides size in determining its claim to excellence.1
In many o f what would otherwise be first-class heads there is such a quantity o f plaster, and
so many pieces o f “ Nature’s virgin forest,” that they are at once placed out o f the running.
1 11 feeC ^ inches head in the Dublin Museum, presented by the Marquis of Bath, is fearfully manufactured, and
has no real claims to distinction in the matter of span.