Dr. Hart mentions the discovery of a human body in gravel, under eleven feet of peat, soaked in bog-water, in good preservation, and completely clothed in antique garments of hair, which it has been conjectured might be that of the Great Deer. But if some individual animal had perished and left its body under the like circumstances, its hide and hair ought equally to have been preserved. Dr. Molyneux, to whom we owe the first account of its discovery, says that its extinction in Ireland has occurred "so many ages past, as there remains among us not the least record in writing, or any manner of tradition, that makes so much as mention of its name; as that most laborious inquirer into the pretended ancient but certainly fabulous history of this country, Mr. Roger O'Flaherty, the author of _Ogygia_, has lately informed me."[78] [78] _Philosophical Transactions_, vol. xix. p. 490. In the romance of the "Niebelungen," now immortalised by Wagner, which was written in the thirteenth century, the word _shelch_ occurs, and is applied to one of the beasts slain in a great hunt a few hundred years before that time in Germany. This word has been cited by some naturalists as probably signifying the Great Irish Deer. But this is mere conjecture, and the word might apply to some big Red Deer. The total silence of Cæsar and Tacitus respecting such remarkable animals renders it highly improbable that they were known to the ancient Britons. [Illustration: Fig. 57.--Skeleton of Great Irish Deer, _Cervus giganteus_, from shell-marl beneath the peat, Ireland. Antlers over 9 feet across.] Two entire skeletons of the male, with antlers measuring a little over nine feet from tip to tip, and one skeleton of the hornless doe, are to be seen set up in the middle of the long gallery No. 1 at the Natural History Museum. The drawing in Fig. 57 is from a specimen in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (Lincoln's Inn Fields). The height of this specimen to the summit of the antlers is 10 ft. 4 in. The span of the antlers, from tip to tip, is 8 ft. (in the living Moose it is only 4 ft). The weight of the skull and antlers together is 76 lbs., but those of another specimen belonging to the Royal Dublin Society weigh 87 lbs. This great extinct deer surpassed the largest Wapite (Cervus Canadensis) in size, and its antlers were very much larger, wider, and heavier. In some cases the antlers have measured more than 11 ft. from tip to tip. The body of the animal, as well as its antlers, were larger and stronger than in any existing deer. The limbs are stouter, as might be expected from the great weight of the head and neck. Another and more striking feature is the great size of the vertebræ of the neck; this was necessary in order to form a column capable of supporting the head and its massive antlers. (See Plate XXV.) [Illustration: Plate XXV. THE GREAT IRISH DEER, CERVUS MEGACEROS. Height to the summit of the antlers 10 feet; spread of antlers 11 feet.]