It is a popular opinion with the Indians that the elk is subject to epilepsy, with which he is frequently seized when pursued, and thus rendered an easy prey to the hunters. Many naturalists affect to disbelieve this account, without, however, assigning any sufficient reason. But if it be considered, that, during the growth of the horns, there must be a great increased determination of blood to those parts, which are supplied by the frontal artery, a branch from the internal carotid, it is quite conformable to well established pathological principles, to suppose, that, after the horns are perfected, and have ceased to receive any more blood, that fluid may be determined to those internal branches of the carotid which supply the brain, and establish a predisposition to such derangements of its circulation as would produce epilepsy, or even apoplexy: if such an effect were produced in consequence of the size of the horns in the elk, it is reasonable to suppose that it prevailed in a greater degree in the fossil animal whose horns were so much larger. What could have been the use of these immense horns? It is quite evident that they would prevent the animal making any progress through a thickly wooded country, and that the long, tapering, pointed antlers were totally unfit for lopping off the branches of trees, a use to which the elk sometimes applies his horns[427], and for which they seem well calculated, by having their antlers short and strong, and set along the edge of the palm, somewhat resembling the teeth of a saw in their arrangement. It would rather appear, then, that they were given the animal as weapons for its protection, a purpose for which they seem to have been admirably designed; for their lateral expansion is such, that should occasion require the animal to use them in his defence, their extreme tips would easily reach beyond the remotest parts of his body; and if we consider the powerful muscles for moving the head, whose attachments occupied the extensive surfaces of the cervical vertebræ, with the length of the lever afforded by the horns themselves, we can easily conceive how he could wield them with a force and velocity which would deal destruction to any enemy having the hardihood to venture within their range. From the formidable appearance of these horns, then, we must suppose that their possessor was obnoxious to the aggressions of some carnivorous animals of ferocious habits; and such we know to have abounded in Ireland, as the wolf, and the celebrated Irish wolf dog. Nor would it be surprising if limestone caves should be discovered in this country, containing the remains of beasts of prey and their victims, similar to the hyænas’ dens of Kirkdale, and other places, respecting which such interesting researches have been lately laid before the public by the geologists of this country and the Continent.