Cervus Giganteus
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Gervus giganteus in the Isle of Man must be regarded either
as a Late-glacial or early Post-glacial inhabitant according to the
limits, in any case arbitrary, which we may assign to the Glacial Period.
Since the discovery of the first nearly complete skeleton of the Irish
Elk in a marl-pit near Ballaugh early in the present century [i.e. 19th],
the Isle of Man has been recognised in geological literature as one
of the typical localities for the occurrence of this animal. Curiously
enough this is the only Pleistocene vertebrate yet definitely proved
to have existed in the Island, though a drifted fragment of elephant’s
tusk has been found at Jurby and another fragment supposed to be a cetacean
rib is mentioned by Cumming’ as having been obtained from the drift
at Douglas, and there are doubtful records of the red deer and horse
and of Bos longifrons. ‘A kind of peat, composed of rotten leaves and
~ small branches closely matted together, mixed with sprinkles of sand,
and containing a vast number of the exuvia2 of beetles, bees and their
nests, crushed together with seed-vessels, rotten, but having their
external coating well preserved. Other basins of white marl in which
no shells now appear, the thicker portion of the deposits from the basin.
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The Edinburgh specimen, upper part of the marl slight veins or rents
occur. Between the alluvial covering and the marl there is a bed of
dark turfy, fibrous earth, from 2 to 4 inches thick, each horizontal
layer showing different degrees of shade. The marl is darkest near
the top, continuing thus to a depth of 18 inches. This marl is also
fibrous, and somewhat slaty, and exhibits between its layers white
delineations like grass. It likewise contains bones, but they are
few in number, and much decayed; of these are pieces of ribs, condyles
of bones, and stems of large horns, etc. Hence by the time that the
ice had sunk to the foot of the hills the land was probably clad with
verdure, and offered tempting pasturage for the great elks, just as
the Barren Lands of Northern Canada and the tundras of Northern Siberia,
under somewhat similar conditions, at present constitute the favourite
feeding-ground of its living analogues. The little Arctic crustacean
and the Arctic plants were probably contemporaneous with the elk,
and are indications of the proximity of the ice-margin when the animal
first reached the area. It is true that only a single example of the
crustacean and none of the Arctic plants have yet been found in the
marl with the elk; but this is probably an accident of preservation,
as seeds only have endured in this material, and the Arctic willow
is represented by leaves alone in the overlying bed. The relationship
of the sandy beds to the marl in these little basins seems to be that
of shore deposits to deeper water sediments, their accumulation going
on contemporaneously, but the former gradually overspreading the latter
as the pond contracted and grew shallow. The animal may have lingered
on into the age of forests, when the principal peat bogs of the Island
were accumulated; but for this there is at present no positive evidence.
Isle of Man sheep
1,
2, 3, 4
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