192 CASTORID A. 
A portion of an incisor of the under-jaw of a Beaver, 
now in the Museum of the Geological Society of London, 
was found by the President, H. Warburton, Esq., M.P., 
in the fluvio-marine crag at Sizewell Gap, near Southwold, 
Norfolk. This formation has yielded remains, not only of 
the Rhinoceros and Mammoth, but also of the Mastodon, 
which carries the antiquity of the Castor Luropeus far back 
into the tertiary period. Remains of the Beaver have 
been found associated with those of the Mammoth, Hip- 
popotamus, Rhinoceros, Hyzena, and other extinct Mam- 
malia, in the pleistocene fresh-water or drift formations of 
the Val d@Arno; and remains of both Trogontherium * 
and Oastor+ were found fossil by Dr. Schmerling in the 
ossiferous caverns in the neighbourhood of Liege. I have 
not yet obtained knowledge of any fossils of the Beaver 
family having been discovered in the bone cayes of this 
country. 
But the most common situation in which the remains of 
the Beaver are found in this island, as on the Continent, 
is the turbary, peat-bog, or moss-pit. 
The earliest notice of such a discovery in this country 
is contained in a letter, dated February 24, 1757, from 
Dr. John Collet to the Bishop of Ossory, F.R.S., which is 
printed in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1757, 
p- 109. It contains an account of the peat-pit near New- 
bury in Berkshire, and includes in the list of organic re- 
mains, ‘‘ 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.;” the author 
concludes by stating, ‘‘ I have been told that some human 
* Schmerling, Ossem. Foss. des Cavernes de Liége, tom, ii. pl. xxi. fig. 23, 
24° 25. 
+ Ib. pl. xxi. fig. 40, 41. 
