INTRODUCTION. XXV11 



often in high relief, of many of the bones of Elephants, 

 Rhinoceroses, and Hippopotamuses from our tranquil fresh- 

 water deposits, concur, with the nature of their beds, to 

 refute the hypothesis of their having been borne hither by 

 a diluvial current from regions of the earth to which the 

 same genera of quadrupeds are now limited. The very 

 abundance of their fossil remains in our island, is incom- 

 patible with the notion of their forming its share of the 

 carcases of one generation of tropical beasts drowned and 

 dispersed by a single catastrophe of waters. This abun- 

 dance indicates, on the contrary, that the deposits con- 

 taining them formed the grave-yard, as it were, of many 

 successive generations. But I may here remark, that, 

 notwithstanding we are led to believe, from the extra- 

 ordinary number of their remains, that Mammoths existed 

 in Britain in herds, like their gregarious congeners in Asia 

 and Africa, yet the multitude of co-existing individuals is 

 not to be reckoned from the absolute quantity of their fossil 

 remains in a given locality. As reasonably might we infer 

 the former populousness of a deserted village from the 

 quantity of human bones in its churchyard. 



Having offered the foregoing remarks, chiefly for the Rea- 

 der who may not be versed in Greology, in justification of 

 the title of the present work, according to its full signifi- 

 cation, that not merely the Fossils, but the Species recon- 

 structed by their interpretation, were British, I proceed 

 to consider the question which w r ill next naturally sug- 

 gest itself, viz. : how the various members of that ancient 

 Fauna came into this Island? The Geologist, cognizant 

 of the great changes in the relative position of land and 

 sea which continued to be in operation during the plio- 

 cene and post-pliocene periods, will probably reply, that 

 Britain was not insulated from the Continent when it 



