CASTOR EUROP.EUS. 197 



In. Lines. 



Length of the skull . . . . 58 



Breadth of do. . . . . 42 



Length of the lower jaw ... 4 3 



Height of do. at the coronoid process . . 26 



These remains of the Beaver were met with in nearly 

 the same position and locality as those in which the bones 

 of the Otter, described at pp. 119 122, were found. 



Mr. Lyell cites, from the Bulletin de la Societe Geolo- 

 gique de France, torn. ii. p. 26, M. Moreen's discovery, in 

 the peat of Flanders, of the bones of Otters and Beavers ; 

 and he observes, "but no remains have been met with 

 belonging to those extinct quadrupeds, of which the living 

 congeners inhabit warmer latitudes, such as the Elephant, 

 Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, Hysena, and Tiger, though 

 these are so common in superficial deposits of silt, mud, 

 sand, or stalactite, in various districts throughout Great 

 Britain. Their absence seems to imply that they have 

 ceased to live before the atmosphere of this part of the 

 world acquired that cold and humid character which 

 favours the growth of peat." * The Ox, the Horse, the 

 Roebuck, the Red Deer, the Wild Boar, the Brown Bear, 

 the Wolf, and the Beaver, of which animals the bones have 

 been found under similar circumstances in fens and peat- 

 bogs, have doubtless all existed as wild animals in this 

 country since the formation of the peat began, and have 

 been either gradually domesticated or extirpated by man. 



With respect to the historical records and notices of the 

 Beaver as an indigenous quadruped of Great Britain, Mr. 

 Neill, in an interesting Memoir on the Beavers of Scotland,^ 

 states, that no mention of such an animal occurs in any of 

 the public records now extant. In an act, dated June 



* Principles of Geology, 1837, vol. Hi. p. 187. 

 f Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. i. p. 177- 



