of some sixty individuals lay together within an area of less than an acre in the Killegar bog. So numerous were the antlers in Ireland before they had become

FIG. 37.-Cervus megaceros (the great Irish stag).

objects of interest to palæontologists, that they were used to fence in gardens, and the victory of Waterloo was celebrated in a village in County Antrim by a huge

bonfire of the bones and horns of the Irish stag. No existing cervine species approached it in grandeur of aspect and carriage. The large skull of the American elk, and the short neck allowing the antlers to be easily thrown back on the withers, contrast unfavourably with the small, handsome head, and long but powerful neck of the great horned deer, whose limbs again suggest a combination of strength and activity unequalled in any living species of the family. It long bore the inappropriate name of Irish "elk," whereas, in fact, it does not belong to that section of the deer, but is rather to be considered intermediate between the fallow and reindeer.

Passing to the New World, some very singular groups of herbivorous animals present themselves in Pleistocene formations, and it is to be remarked that they reflect the characters peculiar to their living, but far smaller representatives on the same continent. Here is the head-quarters of the Edentata-possessing no teeth in the front of the jaws the sloths, armadillos, ant-eaters, etc. Towards the close of last century, the bones of a colossal animal were exhumed from a considerable depth on the banks of the river Luxan, in the province of Buenos Ayres, to which Cuvier gave the name Megatherium (great beast). Casts of these were taken and put together in the British Museum, forming a complete representation of this enormous ground sloth, beside whose massive frame the largest hippopotamus would seem slightly built. From a critical study of its anatomy, Professor Owen has come to the following conclusions.

with respect to its habits in life. So vast a weight could not have been supported in the manner of existing sloths, climbing, back downwards, among the branches of trees, but the animal must have passed its life upon the earth. Standing upon those pillar-like hind legs, of which every bone indicates extraordinary muscular power, and further supported by the short, thick tail, it would tear down trees of considerable size, in order to possess itself of their foliage, and the long, curved

claws with which all the toes are provided, would assist it in maintaining a firm grasp of the wood. The Scelidotherium, Mylodon, and Megalonyx, forms allied to the above, but easily distinguished from them by dental and other characters, lived in a similar manner, and the two latter ranged as far north as the state of Virginia. These ancient representatives, then, of existing arboreal sloths were, on account of their huge size, necessarily

terrestrial animals. The living armadillos have their prototypes, too, in the Glyptodons-remarkable also for their large size in comparison with the armadillos, the proportions being as three to one-but the armour of the glyptodon, instead of consisting of movable bands, was a solid shield as inflexible as the carapace of a tortoise, and the skeleton was rendered still further rigid by ankylosis of the joints of the backbone.

We have seen that the earliest known mammals belonged to the marsupial order, and that they were distributed freely, during the SECONDARY and Early TERTIARY eras, over Europe, whence they have long since disappeared. They seem to have held their ground on the American continent from their first appearance there, and are still represented by the single genus Didelphys, including numerous species. In the far-distant Australasian region, however, the order flourishes, and is the dominant form of mammalian life. No fossil marsupials have been recognized in Australian rocks of the age corresponding to that which furnished Europe with them, although, with a fuller knowledge of the formations of Australia, it is probable that either the marsupial or lower monotrematous order will be discovered. That they should have appeared there suddenly in the Late Pleistocene age is contrary to our experience of the history of many other important groups. Here, again, the extinct TERTIARY types of the order are mostly colossal when compared with its living members. The largest kangaroo, if we concede it a height of six feet, would have appeared an insignificant creature

beside the fossil Diprotodon, whose skull was at least three times as large, and the rest of the body presumably on the same scale; so that this extinct kangaroo may easily have attained a height of eighteen feet. While the herbivorous division is represented by diprotodon, Nototherium, etc., they had a formidable carnivorous enemy in Thylacoleo carnifex (the executioner pouched lion), which transcended the proportions of any living predatory animal. Some doubt has been expressed by competent anatomists whether thylacoleo was carnivorous or not, although Professor Owen ranks it as such by the large sectorial teeth, which have no near analogy among the herbivorous orders in any class. At the present day Australasia produces two distinctly carnivorous genera of marsupials, Thylacinus and Dasyurus, besides others whose habits and dentition indicate similar propensities. It will be seen, then, that the extinct Pleistocene mammals of this province are still represented by living forms of the same order.

With the Island of Tasmania the southward extension of this group ceases, and the zoological evidence for the union of this island with Australia during the existence of such surviving animals as the kangaroo does not apply to New Zealand. Such of its TERTIARY strata as have been explored yield no marsupials; but the very large and important order of cursorial birds-those which possess no efficient wings, as the ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea, apteryx, etc. are represented by the extinct gigantic bird to which the natives gave the name Moa. In Professor Huxley's classification, this is in