$$ Si ^ ft'E H I S tO H Y O Book*. ".' Branching : Wns of a mod extraordinary fizeiiave beeirdiica- "re*e4 frequently ii> feveral parts of England and Ireland ; and 4bme of them were ftill fattened to the heads of their owners 4 . •The diicovery of them equally in Ireland and in England, and the great frequency of the difcovery in both, fhew the original proprietors- to have been certainly natives of Britain. The horns have been fuppofed by lbnie, and- they are aflerted by the tra- dition of Ireland, to be actually the horns of an elk. But as that animal appears plainly from its Latin appellation, of Alee ©r Elk agnong us to have never been a native of Britain, fo are- its horns at once very different in figure and much inferior in fize tothefe. The horns appear plainly to be the relicks of deer* and are undoubtedly therefore the antlers of a large ftout breed of
- ©ur BritHh deer* The breed muft have been uncommonly
'large- Several of the horns werefb enormoufly tall, that the faireft antlers. of our prefent deer would appear as infigilificant 4» the. comparison with them as the young flioots of a fawn compared with the beams of a buck. Some of the horns branch- ed 6ut to fo enormous a width, that the tip of the one was nearly -eAev$n feet diftant from the tip of the. other ; t The bceedL is> . flaw, loft in Britain and in Europe. But as it ftill feems to Hdb— fift.in the Moofe of America, fo it feems 'to have been origi- . utally frequent in the north of Germany ; the horns of the. rnoofe 4&d the aptlers discovered in the BritifK iiles being nearly of .the fame (Undard:^ and the Amerkan Moofe and theSjeytbian
- Tarandus bping defer it^d by the hatu? alifts .3xa£Uy i* the fame
.manner-: The body of th$ former isfbid by the moft cijcuia- . #antial defcribers of the Modfe to be about the fize of a. bull, and the body of the latter is declared by the one only d^fcribfr , of the Tarandus to be about the.bignefs. of an ox. The, former is aflerted to have a neck refembling a flag's, and* the latter ;a> . head greater than a flag's and jaot unlike it. And both are men- tioned to have large branching j>orns, cloven hoofs, and Shaggy . hides 5 . Thefe muft have been denominated by the Britoos . Seghs, r Oxen,, or Savage Deer, as Segh a&ually fignifies aa ox at prefent^ and as in an old Irifh gloflary it is interpreted a Savage ..•■,-' • Deeix
