52 Vertebrate Palaeontology of Cambridgeshire 



'Index' to the fossil remains of birds and reptiles in the 

 Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge, compiled by Professor 

 H. G. Seeley. Although this was confessedly a mere museum 

 catalogue, generic and specific names were assigned to a large 

 number of the reptilian specimens from the Greensand and 

 other formations of the county, with little or nothing in the 

 way of definition. Some of the forms thus casually named 

 have been subsequently described by the author of the aforesaid 

 'Index' or by other palaeontologists. Others, however, have 

 remained in statu quo to this day, and there is consequently 

 great difficulty in deciding how many of these nominal genera 

 and species should be quoted in palaeontological literature, 

 and how many should be regarded as nomina nuda. 



Much interest also attaches to the mammalian remains 

 from the Cambridgeshire Fens, although the same types are 

 met with in those of the adjacent counties. A fourth formation 

 in the county which has likewise yielded remains of great 

 interest is the Kimeridge Clay at Roswell pit, near Ely, many 

 of which were collected from about 1850 to 1870 by Mr Fisher, 

 of that city. 



Commencing with the remains from the Fens, the first 

 specimen for notice is a fine skull of the brown bear (Ursus 

 arctos) figured on page 77 of Owen's British Fossil Mammals 

 and Birds (1846), and described in the two following pages 

 of that work. It is preserved in the Sedgwick Museum, 

 Cambridge, and was dug up in Manea Fen. A second but 

 imperfect bear's skull from the same locality is referred to on 

 page 78 of the work cited. The fore-part of a skull of the 

 otter (Lutra lutra), from Littleport Fen, below Ely, is figured 

 in page 119 of Sir R. Owen's work, and is preserved in the 

 Sedgwick Museum. 



Jaws of the beaver (Castor fiber} were dug up so long ago 

 as the year 1818 about three miles south of Chatteris, in the 

 bed of the old West Water, which once formed a communi- 

 cation between the Ouse and the Nen. They are described 

 by Mr Okes in the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophi- 



