PALEONTOLOGY 



ALTHOUGH Berkshire has no extinct vertebrate fauna peculiar to itself, and apparently 

 only a single species hitherto unknown elsewhere, yet it enjoys the distinction of being 

 the county which first afforded evidence as to the former existence of the musk-ox (Ovibos 

 moschatus) in Britain. The imperfect skull (now in the British Museum) on which this deter- 

 mination was made came from a pit in the lower level drift near Maidenhead, where it was 

 discovered in July, 1855, by the Rev. C. Kingsley and Mr. John Lubbock (now Lord Avebury). 

 It attracted much interest at the time, and during the same year was described by Sir Richard 

 Owen in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London ; a note on the age and 

 relations of the deposit in which it was found being added by Sir Joseph Prestwich. 1 

 Remains of the musk-ox have been subsequently discovered in several other British localities, 

 notably at Bromley, Freshford near Bath, Barnwood near Gloucester, in the Thames Valley 

 at Crayford and also at Cromer. 



The county also appears to be the first from which remains of the beaver (Castor fiber) 

 were obtained. This record dates from the year 1757, when a letter from Dr. John Collet to 

 the Bishop of Ossory was published in the Philosophical Transactions, 2 which contains an ac- 

 count of the well-known peat-pit near Newbury, and states that ' 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, etc.,' were disinterred. This account was subsequently fully confirmed by 

 later discoveries, Sir R. Owen 3 stating that from 20 feet below the present surface of the New- 

 bury peat valley a Mr. Purdoe obtained jaws and teeth of the beaver in association with remains 

 of the wild boar (Sus scrofa ferus), roebuck (Capreolus capreolus), goat (Capra hircus), red deer 

 (Cervus elaphus) and wolf (Cants lupus). The goat is of course the ' antelope ' of the earlier 

 account. Sir R. Owen * doubtfully refers a skull from Newbury to the fallow deer (C. dama). 

 From the same deposits have been subsequently recorded B remains of the badger (Meles meles), 

 water-vole (Microtus amphibius), Celtic shorthorn (Bos taurus), extinct wild ox or aurochs 

 (B. t. primigenius) and horse (Equus caballus). Of the aurochs a fine skull from Ham Marsh 

 is preserved in the museum of the Newbury Institution. 



Of nearly equal antiquity with the record of remains of the beaver from Newbury is an 

 account of the discovery of tusks and other teeth of the wild boar at Abingdon. These were 

 sent to John Hunter in 1787 by a Mr. W. Jones of Abingdon, accompanied by a letter de- 

 scribing their discovery in a layer of sand accompanied by hazel nuts about ten feet below the 

 surface. 6 Remains of the mammoth (Elephas primigenius) and straight-tusked elephant (E. 

 antiquus) are also recorded by Messrs. Woodward and Sherborn from Abingdon, although the 

 writer has been unable to discover on what authority. 



In digging the foundations for new cavalry barracks at Windsor in 1867, there were dis- 

 covered in a bed of gravel numerous mammalian remains, among which Professor W. B. Daw- 

 kins 7 identified a bear (perhaps Ursus spelaus), the wolf, horse, fossil bison (Bos priscus) and 

 reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), the antlers and bones of the latter largely outnumbering the 

 other remains. From Ufton remains of the extinct Irish deer, or ' Irish elk ' (Cervus giganteus), 

 are recorded in Woodward and Sherborn's catalogue. 



In the communication referred to above Sir J. Prestwich mentioned the occurrence of 

 remains of the mammoth in the same pit at Maidenhead, and likewise that mammalian bones 

 had been obtained by Mr. Blackwell in the Kennet valley at Aldermaston near Newbury. 



' Vol. xii. 124, 132. a p. 109. 



3 Brit. Foss. Mamm. and Birds, p. 193 (1846). Op. cit. 483. 



8 See Woodward and Sherborn, Brit. Fan. " Owen, op. cit. p. 430. 



Vertebrates. 7 See Early Man in Britain, p. 155 (1880). 



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