282 A Geological Sketch of the Valley of the Kennet. 



the peat, all of existing species, and also bones of the following 

 mammalia ^ : — 



Bos primigenius 



B. longifrons 



Cervus Capreolus, (Roebuck) 



C. Elaphus, (Red Deer) 

 Equus 



Sus scrofa, (Pig). 



Canis lupus, (Wolf) 

 Lutra vulgaris, (Otter) 

 TJrsus spelseus 

 Castor Europaeus, (Beaver) 

 Arvicola, (Water Rat) 



Unfortunately but little interest has been taken until recently 

 in the discovery of those fossils, so that very few have been pre- 

 served, but there are now 

 in the Newbury Museum, 

 thanks in great measure to 

 the generosity of Joseph 

 Bunny, Esq., M.D., part of 

 abeaver's jaw,^bones or teeth 

 of all the other animals above 

 Fig. 6.— Bearers Jaw. enumerated, and specimens 



of shells and wood found in the alluvium. There is also in the 



'In the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1757, p. 109, there is "an 

 account of the peat-pit near Newbury, in an extract of a letter from John 

 Collet, M.D., to the Bishop of Ossory," in which the writer says "a great many 

 horns, heads, and bones of several kinds of deer, the horns of the antelope, the 

 heads and tusks of boars, the heads of beavers, &c., are also found in it ; and 

 I have been told that some human bones have been found, but I never saw any 

 of these myself, though I have of all the others. But I am assured that all 

 these things are generally found at the bottom of the peat." 



^ Professor Owen in speaking of jaws and teeth of the Castor Europaeus 

 (beaver) found twenty feet below the present siu-facc in the Newbury peat 

 valley, says " The section of the valley at this part disclosed, first, two feet of 

 alluvium, then eight feet of a shell marl, next ten feet of peat, then a second 

 deposit of shell marl containing fresh-water shells of existing species ; and in 

 this stratum the beaver's bones were found associated with remains of the wild 

 boar, roebuck, goat, deer, and wolf." British Fossil Mammals and Birds, p. 

 193. In the time of Giraldus, at the end of the 12th century, the beaver still 

 existed on the river Tivy near Cardigan, and also in Scotland. " Inter uni- 

 verses Cambriae seu etiam Llajgrise fluvios, solus hie castores habet ; in Albania 

 quippe, ut fertur fluvis similiter unico habentur sed rari," lib. ii., cap. 3. 

 Pennant cites a pass!ige from the " Leges Wallicse," or the Laws of Howel the 

 Good, a document of the 9th century, which shows, however, that three centiu:ies 



