(Vol. ii., p. 494.; Vol. iii., p. 26.)
W. R. C. states that he is anxious to collect all possible information as
to this once noble animal. I would have offered the following notes and
references sooner, but that I was confident that some abler contributor to
the pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES" would have brought out of his stores much
to interest your natural history readers (whose Queries I regret are so few
and far between), and at the same time elucidate some points touched upon
by W. R. C., as to the period of its becoming extinct. Perhaps he would
favour me with the particulars of "its being shot in 1553," and a
particular reference to the plate alluded to in the _Nuremberg Chronicle_,
as I have not been able to recognise in _any_ of its plates the Cervus
Megaceros, and I am disposed to question the correctness of the statement,
that the animal existed so lately as the period referred to.
There is in the splendid collections of the Royal Dublin Society (which,
unfortunately, is not arranged as it should be, from want of proper space),
a fine _skeleton_ of this animal, the _first_ perfect one possessed by any
public body in Europe:
"It is perfect" [I quote the admirable memoir drawn up for the Royal
Dublin Society by that able comparative anatomist Dr. John Hart, which
will amply repay a perusal by W. R. C., or any other naturalist who may
feel an interest in the subject] "in every single bone of the framework
which contributes to form a part of the 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, form a splendid display of the reliques of the former grandeur of
the animal kingdom, and carries back the imagination to the period when
whole herds of this noble animal wandered at large over the face of the
country."
Until Baron Cuvier published his account of these remains, they were
generally supposed to be the same as those of the Moose deer or elk of N.
America. (Vide _Ann. du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle_, tom. xii., and
_Ossemens Fossiles_, tom. iv.) This error seems to have originated with Dr.
Molyneux in 1697. (Vide _Phil. Trans._, vol. xix.)
The perforated rib referred to was presented to the society by Archdeacon
Maunsell, and
"contains an oval opening towards its lower edge, the long diameter of
which is parallel to the length of the rib, its margin is depressed on
the outer and raised on the inner surface; round which there is an
irregular effusion of callus.... In fact, such a wound as would be
produced by the head of an arrow remaining in the wound after the shaft
had broken off."--Hart's _Memoir_, p. 29.
There are in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, a very complete and
interesting series of {122} antlered skulls of this animal. Should W. R. C.
or any other reader of "NOTES AND QUERIES," desire further information on
this subject, I will gladly, if in my power, afford it.