Extinct Monsters / A Popular Account of Some of the Larger Forms of Ancient Animal Life

by H. N. Hutchinson

In the Red Deer the antlers, weighing about 24 lbs., are developed in the course of about ten weeks; but what is that compared to the growth of over 80 lbs. weight in some three or four months?

It is a mistake to suppose that the remains discovered in Ireland were found in peat; they occur not in the peat, but in shell-marls and in clays under the peat. This is an important point For if the remains were found in the peat, they would prove that the Great Deer survived into a later period; instead of being (as is believed from geological evidence) contemporary with the Mammoth and Woolly Rhinoceros in this country, and then disappearing from view. As already stated, it existed on the Continent, and may there have been exterminated by man.

Mr. W. Williams, who has explored several peat-bogs in Ireland, marking the site of ancient lakes, and found many specimens in beds underlying the peat, has given much interesting information bearing upon the question of the period when the Great Deer inhabited Ireland, and the manner in which it was preserved in the lake-beds.[79] He spent ten weeks in 1876-77, excavating deer remains in the bog of Ballybetagh, and subsequently made similar excavations in the counties of Mayo, Limerick, and Meath. These peat-bogs occupy the basins of lakes, the deeper hollows of which have long since been silted up with marls, clays, and sands, and in this silt, or mud, the plants which produced the peat grew. In all the bogs examined he found a general resemblance in the order of succession of the beds, with only slight variations in the nature of the materials such as might be easily accounted for by differences in the surrounding rocks. In these deposits the geologist may read, as in a book, the successive changes in climate that have taken place since the time when the country was deeply covered with snow and ice during the Glacial period.

[79] Geological Magazine, new series, vol. viii. (1881), p. 354.

He found at the bottom of the old Ballybetagh Lake, and resting on the true Boulder Clay (a product of the ice-sheet), a fine stiff clay which seems to have been brought in by the action of rain washing fine clay out of the Boulder Clay, that nearly covered the land, and depositing it in the lake. This action probably took place during a period of thaw, when the climate was damp, from the melting of so much ice, and the rainfall considerable. Then the climate improved, the cold of the Glacial period passed away, and the climate became warm. During this phase the next stratum was formed, consisting chiefly of vegetable remains. The summers must have been unusually warm, dry, and favourable to the growth of vegetation on the bed of the lake. About this time the Great Irish Deer appeared on the scene, for its remains were found resting on this layer, or stratum, in a brownish clay. This deposit also was the product of a time when the climate was mild. It is a true lake-sediment, with seams of clay and fine sand, the latter having been brought down by heavy rainfall from the hills, just as at the present day.

Now, we have to consider how these Great Deer got buried in this deposit. How did they get drowned? They may have gone into the lakes to escape from wolves, or possibly to escape from ancient Britons (but that is still doubtful). Perhaps they went into the water to wallow, as is usual with deer, or they may have ventured to swim the lakes (see [p. 19]). To enter the lake from a sandy shore would be easy enough, but, on reaching the other side, they might find a soft mud instead, into which their small feet would sink; and the more they plunged and struggled, the worse became their plight, until at last, weary and exhausted, the heavy antlers pressed their heads down under the water, and they were drowned.

It does not follow, according to this theory, that either the entire animal ought to be found, or even its legs, sticking in the clay. For a few days it might remain so, but the motion of the waters of the lake would sway the body to and fro, while the gases due to decomposition would render it buoyant, and perhaps raise it bodily off the bottom. Then it might float before the wind, its head hanging down, till it reached the lee-side of the lake. Then the antlers would get fastened in mud near the shore, thus mooring the body until at last so much of the flesh of the neck had decayed that the body got separated from it, leaving the head and antlers near the shore.

Nearly a hundred heads had been found in this lake previous to Mr. Williams’s explorations, and yet scarcely six skeletons. At first it is somewhat puzzling to account for this scarcity of skeletons compared with heads; but very likely the bodies, minus their heads, were carried right out of the lake, down a river, and perhaps reached the sea or got stranded somewhere down the river in such a way that the bones were never covered up. But in the Limerick bogs heads and skeletons were often found together. In that district the lakes were probably shallow and with but a feeble current, and so the body never floated away. This explanation by Mr. Williams seems satisfactory.

He reports that the female skulls were rarely met with. Either they were more timid in swimming lakes, or, having no antlers, they may have succeeded in getting out, or the care of their young ones may have kept them out of the lakes during the summer months. The clay in which the remains occur is succeeded by another bed of pure clay, which never yields any skulls or bones. This, Mr. Williams thinks, was deposited at a time when the climate was more or less severe, and the musk-ox, reindeer, and other arctic animals came down from more northern regions, even down to the south of France. He concludes that this period marks the extinction of the Great Deer in Ireland, whether rightly or wrongly it is hard to say. Many observers are inclined to think that it lived on to a later period. An interesting fact, having some bearing on the question, is this: that the bones in some cases even yet retain their marrow in the state of a fatty substance, which will burn with a clear lambent flame. Evidence such as this seems to point to a more recent date for its extinction.