In the year 1846, a very interesting corroboration of the opinion long held by some that the great broad-horned Deer was domesticated by the ancient Irish, was given by the discovery of a vast collection of bones at Lough Gûr, near Limerick. The word Gûr is said to mean "an assemblage," so that the locality is "the Lake of the Assemblage," commemorating perhaps the gathering of an army or some other host at the spot. In the midst of the lake is an island, which is described as being so completely surrounded with bones and skulls of animals "that one would think the cattle of an entire nation must have been slaughtered to procure so vast an assemblage." The skulls are described as belonging to the following animals:--The giant deer (females); a deer of inferior size; the stag; another species of stag; the fallow deer; the broad-faced ox; the hollow-faced ox; the long-faced ox; another species of ox; the common short-horned ox; the goat; and the hog. The principal points of interest centred in the Giant Deer or so-called Irish Elk. The skulls of these, as of all the larger animals, "were broken in by some sharp and heavy instrument, and in the same manner as butchers of the present day slaughter cattle for our markets, and in many cases the marrow-bones were broken across, as if to get at the marrow." Of course, if this was indubitable, the conclusion was inevitable, that the Giant Deer was not only contemporary with man, but was domesticated by him with other quadrupeds, and used for food. Professor Owen, however, contended that the skulls of the Giant Deer were not females but males, from which the horns had been forcibly removed, and that the holes in the foreheads were made by the violent wrenching off of the horns tearing away a portion of the frontal bone from which they grew. In reply to this opinion, Mr H. D. Richardson of Dublin, whose personal acquaintance with the relics of this noble species is peculiarly extensive, shewed that certain variations of proportion on which the learned Professor relied to prove the skulls to be male, were of no such value, individual animals presenting great discrepancies in these respects: that the total absence of cornuous peduncles from the sides of the forehead, and of the elevated bony ridge, conclusively proved the sex to be female, which was permanently destitute of horns; and that in no case could it be said that the ridge was forced away, since the violence was confined to a _small hole_ in the centre of the forehead.