14 DANISH SHELL-MOUNDS, chap. ii. 



have made one eruption into the Baltic by the Lymfiord, 

 although they have been now again excluded. It is also 

 affirmed that other channels were open in historical times 

 which are now silted up.* 



If we next turn to the remains of vertebrata preserved in 

 the mounds, we find that here also, as in the Danish peat< 

 mosses, all the quadrupeds belong to species known to have 

 inhabited Europe within the memory of man. No remains 

 of the mammoth, or rhinoceros, or of any extinct species 

 appear, except those of the wild bull (Bos Urus Linn., or Bos 

 primigenius Bojanus), which are in such numbers as to 

 prove that the species was a favorite food of the ancieni 

 peo^^le. But as this animal was seen by Julius Csesar, and 

 sui-vived long after his time, its presence alone would not 

 go ftxr to prove the mounds to be of high antiquity. The 

 Lithuanian aurochs or bison (7?os Bison L., Bos priscus Boj., 

 which has escaped extirpation only because protected by the 

 Eussian Czars, surviving in one forest in Lithuania) has nofc 

 yet been met with, but will no doubt be detected hereafter, 

 as it has been already found in the Danish peat. The 

 beaver, long since destroyed in Denmark, occurs frequently, 

 as does the seal (^Pltoca Gryppus Fab.), now very rare on 

 the Danish coast. With these are mingled bones of the red 

 deer and roe, but the reindeer has not yet been found. 

 There are also the bones of many carnivora, such as the 

 lynx, fox, and wolf, but no signs of any domesticated animals 

 except the dog. The long bones of the larger mammalia 

 have been all broken as if b}' some instrument, in such a 

 manner as to allow of the extraction of the marrow, and the 

 gristly parts have been gnawed off, as if by dogs, to whose 

 agency is also attributed the almost entire absence of the 

 bones of young birds and of the smaller bones and softer 



* Seo Morlot, Bulletin de la Societe Vaudoise des Sci. Nat., t. vi. 



