192 CASTORID.E. 



A portion of an incisor of the under-javv of a Beaver, 

 now in the Museum of the Geological Society of London, 

 was found by the President, H. Warburton, Esq., M.P., 

 in the fluvio-marine crag at Sizewell Gap, near Southwold, 

 Norfolk. This formation has yielded remains, not only of 

 the Rhinoceros and Mammoth, but also of the Mastodon, 

 which carries the antiquity of the Castor Europaus far back 

 into the tertiary period. Remains of the Beaver have 

 been found associated with those of the Mammoth, Hip- 

 popotamus, Rhinoceros, Hyaena, and other extinct Mam- 

 malia, in the pleistocene fresh-water or drift formations of 

 the Val d'Arno ; and remains of both Trogontherium * 

 and Castor^ were found fossil by Dr. Schmerling in the 

 ossiferous caverns in the neighbourhood of Liege. I have 

 not yet obtained knowledge of any fossils of the Beaver 

 family having been discovered in the bone caves of this 

 country. 



But the most common situation in which the remains of 

 the Beaver are found in this island, as on the Continent, 

 is the turbary, peat-bog, or moss-pit. 



The earliest notice of such a discovery in this country 

 is contained in a letter, dated February 24, 1757, from 

 Dr. John Collet to the Bishop of Ossory, F.R.S., which is 

 printed in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1757, 

 p. 109. It contains an account of the peat-pit near New- 

 bury in Berkshire, and includes in the list of organic re- 

 mains, " 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, &c. ;" the author 

 concludes by stating, " I have been told that some human 



* Schmerling, Ossem. FOBS, des Cavernes de Liege, torn. ii. pi. xxi. fig. 23, 

 24, 25. 



t Ib.pl. xxi. fig. 40,41. 



