No. 214 - THE PENNY MAGAZINE - Aug. 1, 1835

THE FOSSIL ELK OF IRELAND.
(Cervus megaceros.)

AMONG the fossil relics which our British Islands afford, none are more interesting than those of a species of elk now extinct, which once abounded in the localities where its remains are discovered. The interest which attaches to the remains of the animal we propose to examine, does not arise from the circumstance of the vaguely-remote epoch in which it existed, nor from its having witnessed, when it existed, a condition of the earth's surface unlike any thing at present, changed by some contemporary catastrophe, the first of many which have succeeded;--on the contrary, the interest we feel is from the circumstance that its relics indicate a condition of things in our latitudes precisely similar to what now obtains,--that the date of its extinction is, geologically speaking, very recent,--that in all probability it was coeval with man, and formed one of the objects of chase to the savage hunter in a thinly-peopled country. If we be right in these conjectures, the bones of the fossil elk will belong to a later epoch than most of the mammalia whose fossil relics have been yet discovered.

In the cave at Kirkdale in Yorkshire, (the cave being a natural fissure in a rock of oolite, a sort of limestone, which abounds with corals and portions of echini throughout its substance,) Dr. Buckland found the fossil relics of twenty-two species of animals, principally mammalia: viz., of Carnivora, the hyaena, tiger, bear, wolf, fox, weasel, and an unknown animal about the size of a wolf;--of Pachydermata, the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and horse;--of Ruminantia, the ox, and three species of deer;--of Rodentia, the rabbit, water-rat, and mouse;--of Birds, the raven, pigeon, lark, and a small species of duck. The relics of these animals (consisting of their bones and teeth) were covered by a layer of fine mud, spread over the floor of the cave, which, on the removal of the mud, "was found to be strewed all over, like a dog-kennel, from one end to the other," with hundreds of teeth, and "broken and splintered fragments of bones of all the animals above enumerated." * * * "Those of the larger animals, elephant and rhinoceros, were found coextensively with all the rest." Many had evidently been gnawed, and exhibited teeth-marks which fitted the canine teeth of the hyaena that occur in the cave, and which appears to have been a third larger than any species now existing. Every circumstance, indeed, conspired to prove that this cave had long been the unmolested resort of these ferocious animals, which had dragged in the smaller animals whole, the larger piecemeal, in order to devour them at leisure,--nay, that they often devoured each other.

The coeval existence in our island (and we may add on the adjacent continent of Europe, as the caverns of Gailenreuth, Muggendorf, Bauman, Fouvent, &c., testify) of the hyaena, tiger, bear (Ursus spelaus*), and other animals, with the elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, all appearing to be distinct from now-extant species, but certainly agreeing with them in habits and manners, indicates the climate and the productions in these latitudes to have been very different during their epoch from what we now experience, and we are thrown back upon a remote era. Yet is that era not geologically remote, for, long before the land existed where they swelt, the sea had deposited that rock of oolite, the caverns of which some of them habitually haunted, and in which the bones of all are found. Respecting these fossil-bones, Dr. Buckland observes:--"The facts I have collected seem calculated to throw an important light on the state of our planet at a period antecedent to the last great convulsion that has affected its surface; and I may add that they afford one of the most complete and satisfactory chains of consistent circumstantial evidence I have ever met with in the course of my geological investigations." It is, however, to a still more recent era than that alluded to by Dr. Buckland that the existence of our noble elk is, we think, to be attributed, at least as far as it regards our own islands.

* In the cave of Gailenreuth, the remains of this gigantic species are found in incredible numbers, as well as in those of Muggendorf and Bauman.

The bones of the "Fossil Elk of Ireland" (Cervus megaceros) occur in the greatest abundance, as is implied by the name, in the bogs and marl-pits of that country. They are also found in similar situations in the Isle of Man, as well as in the alluvial strata of England, and have been dug up also in France, Germany, and Italy, where, according to Cuvier, they were found in the same strata with bones of elephants. Ireland, however, appears to have been the congenial habitat of this animal. There its remains are, in some districts, so common, that they have ceased to be regarded as curiosities, and are either used for any common purpose, or are neglected till they become destroyed. It is very seldom, however, that an entire skeleton has been discovered, the remains consisting for the most part of skulls, with the horns attached, and various separate bones disposed without any order. They generally occur in a deposite of shell-marl, covered by a layer of peat, and resting on clay. In this situation one of the few entire skeletons discovered is stated to have occurred. "Most of the bones," says Arch-deacon Maunsell, "and heads, eight in number, were found in the marl; many of them, however, appeared to rest on the clay, and to be merely covered with the marl." It is worthy of remark that the fossil remains of no other animals are mingled with them. Of the skeleton to which we have alluded, and which graces the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society, Mr. Hart drew up a memoir. "This magnificent skeleton," he observes, "is perfect in every single bone of the framework which contributes to form a part of its general outline; the spine, the chest, the pelvis, and the extremities are all complete in this respect; and, when surmounted by the head and beautifully-expanded antlers, which extend out to a distance of nearly six feet on either side, forms a splendid display of the reluques of the former grandeur of the animal kingdom, and carries back the imagination to a period when whole herds of this noble animal wandered at large over the face of the country."

The following are a few points of its admeasurement: 

		                  ft.   in.
Length of head . . . . . . .  .    1     8¾
Breadth between the orbits . . .        10½
Distance between the tips of  . . 11    10
the horns,measured by the skull
Ditto, in a straight line across.  9     2
Length of each horn . . . . . .    5     9
Greatest breadth of palm  . . .    2     9
Circumference of the beam at . . . 1     0¾
 the root of the brow-antler
Length of spine . .. . . . . .    10    10
Height to the top of the back .    6     6
Ditto, to the highest point  . .  10     4
of the tip of the horn

None of the deer tribe of the present day can at all be compared for magnitude to this fossil species. It is singular, however, that until Cuvier pointed out the differences, the antlers were generally regarded as identical with those of the moose or elk of North America. Independently of size, however, they differ in many essential points: for example, in the moose-deer the horn has two palms, a lesser one growing forward from the front of the beam where the principal palm begins to expand: the palm of the moose-deer's horn is directed backwards, and is broadest next the beam. In the fossil-animal, the palm increases in breadth as it proceeds, which it does in a lateral direction; nor are there fewer differential characters in the skull and general skeleton.

wood-cut engraving

Of the habits of the Cervus megaceros we can only form a conjecture. The size and lateral direction of its spreading antlers must have prevented its inhabiting the dense forest,--it must have dwelt on the heath-clad hills,--there, armed with the most powerful weapons of self-defence, it ranged secure from the assaults of any single aggressor, capable of dashing down the wolf or hyaena with a blow. Did man exist coeval with this animal in its native land? Most probably yes. A head of the fossil elk, together with several urns and stone hatchets, were discovered in Germany in the same drain. "In the 'Archaiologia Britannica' is a letter of the Countess of Moira, giving an account of a human body found in gravel under eleven feet of peat, soaked in the bog-water: it was in good preservation, and completely clothed in antique garments of hair," conjectured to be that of the fossil elk. But what is still more conclusive, there exists a rib in the Royal Dublin Society, evidently bearing token of having been wounded by some sharp instrument, which remained long fixed in the wound, but had not penetrated so deep as to destroy the creature's life: it was such a wound as the head of an arrow would produce.

Of the causes which involved the fossil elk in destruction,--whether one general catastrophe universally affected the whole race wherever existing,--whether local causes, operating at different epochs, have successively extinguished the species, which might have lingered the longest in Ireland,--or whether its extermination has been effected by the hand of man, whose agency upon the animal creation is everywhere apparent, no decided opinion can yet be given. We know it existed, and that is all; its history and its fate are buried beneath the shadow of years gone by.

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