CASTOR EUROP^EUS. 195 



adds in a note the following judicious observation. " The 

 apparent dislocation of the skeleton is not to be ascribed 

 to violence, but to the gradual separation of the parts by 

 unequal subsidence. The appearance of the marl, in 

 which delicate shells of the genera Limnea and Succinea 

 can be traced, indicates a long-continued state of tran- 

 quillity." 



On comparing the fossil skull of the old Berwickshire 

 Beaver with recent ones of the North American species, the 

 nasal bones were observed to be proportionally larger in the 

 fossil ; it is not stated whether they were proportionally 

 longer, or had their posterior apices produced farther back 

 between the orbits. There can be little doubt, however, 

 that they belong to the Castor Europ^us, like the skull of 

 the Beaver from a peat-moss in the valley of the Jomme in 

 Picardy, figured in the ' Ossemens Fossiles,' and with 

 which the Scottish specimens are stated closely to agree. 



The next example of the remains of the Beaver from 

 British localities which may here be cited, is that recorded 

 by Mr. Okes in the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 

 The specimens consisted of two left rami of two lower 

 jaws, which were "dug up in 1818, about three miles south 

 of Chatteris, in the bed of the old West Water, formerly 

 a considerable branch of communication between the Ouse 

 and river Nen, but which, according to the traditions of 

 the fen people, has been choked up for more than two 

 centuries.* The length of one of the lower jaws was four 

 inches eight lines. 



* Mr. Okes says, " The accuracy of this tradition respecting the old West 

 Water, is proved by the following extract from an order of Council quoted in 

 Dugdale's History of the Fens. 



"Anno 1617, 9 Maii, 15 Jac. 'That the rivers of Wisbeche, and all the 

 branches of the Nene and West Water be clensed, and made in bredth and depth 

 as much as by antient record they have been.' " Cambridge Philosophical Trans- 

 actions, vol. i. 1822, p. 175. 



o 2 



