

The Fen Fauna 53 



cal Society for 1822 (vol. i. p. 175) 1 . A skull, without the 

 lower jaw, from the Cambridgeshire Fens is also figured by 

 Owen on p. 190 of the work cited above Beaver remains are 

 also recorded from Burwell, Ditton, Ely, and Watcham Fens 2 . 



Remains of the great extinct wild ox or aurochs (Bos 

 taurus primigenius) are far from uncommon in the Fens of the 

 county; some of them bearing evidence as to the existence 

 of this animal with man. The Sedgwick Museum, for 

 instance, possesses a skull from Burwell Fen with a polished 

 (Neolithic) flint implement, or celt, embedded in the fore- 

 head 3 ; and a second skull from Cottenham Fen, formerly in 

 the possession of the rector of that parish, likewise displays 

 evidence of having been injured by a flint weapon. Both 

 these specimens are figured in Miller and Skertchley's Fen- 

 land, Past and Present (p. 3*21). A complete skeleton of the 

 aurochs from Burwell Fen is preserved in the Zoological 

 Museum at Cambridge. Apparently side by side with the 

 wild aurochs lived the domesticated Celtic short- horn (the 

 so-called Bos longifrons), remains of which have been dis- 

 covered in Swaffham Fen. 



Of the deer family the Cambridgeshire Fens have yielded 

 remains of three species two still living and the third ex- 

 tinct. Sir R. Owen 4 , for instance, considers that part of a 

 skull with antlers dug up many years ago near Chatteris from 

 a bed of clay below the peat, belonged to the red deer (Cervus 

 elapkus). This specimen was, however, clearly antecedent to 

 the true Fen epoch, and indeed it was associated with teeth of 

 the mammoth. In the fens of various parts of the county red 

 deer antlers are by no means uncommon. From Burwell Fen 

 are recorded remains of the great extinct Irish deer or ' Irish 

 elk' (Cervus giganteus), but whether from the peat itself 

 or the underlying clay does not appear to be certain. Antlers 



1 See Owen, Brit. Foss. Mamm. and Birds, p. 195. 



2 See Woodward and Sherborn, Brit. Foss. Vertebrata, p. 328. 



3 Described by J. Carter, Geol. Mag. (2) i. p. 492 (1874). 



4 Op. cit. p. 474. 



