78 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
leaves us only chapters eleven and twelve—the former by Mr. 
Skertchly, and the latter apparently by Mr. Miller. 
Mr. Skertchly’s account of the prehistoric fauna of the district 
seems to us unnecessarily diffuse. Though he says, ‘‘it would 
be going beyond our limits to enlarge upon the fossils preserved 
to us in the ancient strata which underlie the true fen beds,” this 
is exactly what he has done, or why do we have disquisitions on 
the fauna of various “gravels” containing remains of Elephant,* 
Hippopotamus, Rhinoceros and other forms which most assuredly 
passed away long before the Fens, in the ordinary acceptation of 
the term, existed? The fauna of the Fenland really begins with 
what we find in the peat—or the “ moor,” to use the local name 
for it. Here he names seventeen mammals, including Man, and 
a “variety” of Bos longifrons! This last is, of course only a 
domesticated breed of Ox, and we cannot doubt that the Horse 
also was in like condition, while possibly the same may be said of 
the Goat and of the normal Long-fronted Ox. This would leave 
only a dozen species undisputed; but we venture to question the 
existence when the peat began to form of the Rein-Deer, and 
think that its remains must be referred to a preceding epoch. 
The Wolf, the Marten, the Bear, the Beaver, the Boar, all the 
Cervide and the Urus are now extinct in the district, if not in 
Britain—and thus the fauna of the early peat days and that of our 
own would seem to have only two wild mammals in common, the 
Fox and the Otter—but of course a greater number of the smaller 
British quadrupeds must then have lived, and we know that 
remains of the Polecat, omitted by Mr. Skertchly, have been 
found. ‘The authors have done well to introduce a figure of the 
grand and nearly perfect skeleton of the Urus dug up a few years 
since in Burwell Fen, and now one of the glories of the Cambridge 
Museum, for it has not been figured before, and is the only speci- 
men approaching to completeness in the kingdom. The same 
Museum also possesses a nearly perfect skeleton, perhaps unique, 
of the British Beaver. Mr. Skertchly enumerates but seven 
species of birds:—the Coot, Bittern, Pelican, Wild and Tame 
Swan, Teal and Crested Grebe. We can assure him, however, 
that the traces of several other species, as the Heron and Wild 
* At page 335 he goes out of his way to say that three years ago it was reported 
that a herd of Mammoths had been seen in Siberia, though he does add, ‘the 
rumour, however, has never been verified” 
