INTRODUCTION, XXVII 
often in high relief, of many of the bones of Hlephants, 
Rhinoceroses, and Hippopotamuses from our tranquil fresh- 
water deposits, concur, with the nature of their beds, to 
refute the hypothesis of their having been borne hither by 
a diluvial current from regions of the earth to which the 
same genera of quadrupeds are now limited. The very 
abundance of their fossil remains in our island, is incom- 
patible with the notion of their forming its share of the 
carecases of one generation of tropical beasts drowned and 
dispersed by a single catastrophe of waters. This abun- 
dance indicates, on the contrary, that the deposits con- 
taining them formed the grave-yard, as it were, of many 
successive generations. But I may here remark, that, 
notwithstanding we are led to believe, from the extra- 
ordinary number of their remains, that Mammoths existed 
in Britain in herds, like their gregarious cengeners in Asia 
and Africa, yet the multitude of co-existing individuals is 
not to be reckoned from the absolute quantity of their fossil 
remains in a given locality. As reasonably might we infer 
the former populousness of a deserted village from the 
quantity of human bones in its churchyard. 
Having offered the foregoing remarks, chiefly for the Rea- 
der who may not be versed in Geology, in justification of 
the title of the present work, according to its full signifi- 
cation, that not merely the Fossils, but the Species recon- 
structed by their interpretation, were British,—I proceed 
to consider the question which will next naturally sug- 
gest itself, viz.: how the various members of that ancient 
Fauna came into this Island? The Geologist, cognizant 
of the great changes in the relative position of land and 
sea which continued to be in operation during the plio- 
cene and post-pliocene periods, will probably reply, that 
Britain was not insulated from the Continent when it 
