CASTOR EUROP RUS. 195 
adds in a note the following judicious observation. ‘‘ The 
apparent dislocation of the skeleton is not to be ascribed 
to violence, but to the gradual separation of the parts by 
unequal subsidence. The appearance of the marl, in 
which delicate shells of the genera Limnea and Suecinea 
can be traced, indicates a long-continued state of tran- 
quillity.” 
On comparing the fossil skull of the old Berwickshire 
Beaver with recent ones of the North American species, the 
nasal bones were observed to be proportionally larger in the 
fossil; it is not stated whether they were proportionally 
longer, or had their posterior apices produced farther back 
between the orbits. There can be little doubt, however, 
that they belong to the Castor Huropeus, like the skull of 
the Beaver from a peat-moss in the valley of the Jomme in 
Picardy, figured in the ‘ Ossemens Fossiles, and with 
which the Scottish specimens are stated closely to agree. 
The next example of the remains of the Beaver from 
British localities which may here be cited, is that recorded 
by Mr. Okes in the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 
The specimens consisted of two left rami of two lower 
jaws, which were dug up in 1818, about three miles south 
of Chatteris, in the bed of the old West Water, formerly 
a considerable branch of communication between the Ouse 
and river Nen, but which, according to the traditions of 
the fen people, has been choked up for more than two 
centuries.* The length of one of the lower jaws was four 
inches eight lines. 
* Mr. Okes says, “ The accuracy of this tradition respecting the old West 
Water, is proved by the following extract from an order of Council quoted in 
Dugdale’s History of the Fens. 
“ Anno 1617, 9 Maii, 15 Jac.——* That the rivers of Wisbeche, and all the 
branches of the Nene and West Water be clensed, and made in bredth and depth 
as much as by antient record they have been.’”” Cambridge Philosophical Trans- 
actions, vol. i. 1822, p. 175. 
o 2 
