Fossil Mammalia in London District. 423 



abundant in the marsh deposits of the Lea Yalley, Essex, that this 

 animal probably had much to do with the extension of the swamps in 

 that region. A good skeleton of a beaver was found in 1911 when 

 excavating at the Royal Victoria and Albert Docks. 



Until comparatively recent times much of the land now covered 

 with houses was occupied by market gardens, which it was customary 

 to ornament with trophies brought home by sailors. Among these 

 may be specially mentioned the ribs and jaws of whales, which were 

 ex*ected as arches or made into seats, and disappeared by burial as 

 soon as building operations began. Remains of the oxen, sheep, and 

 pigs used for food were also often buried, and heaps of them have 

 been found in some places, such as Moorfields. They should be 

 collected with care when circumstances allow of their being dated, 

 because it is interesting to determine the successive breeds which 

 they represent. Exceptional accumulations of bones are sometimes 

 puzzling and less easily explained than one which I saw in the mud 

 filling a former pond at Earl's Court House when it was dismantled 

 in 1884. Here lived the eminent surgeon John Hunter, who thus 

 disposed of the remains of many of the carcases he dissected. 



Below the very irregular surface deposits of London there are the 

 old gravels, with associated sand, brick-earth, and peat, of Pleistocene 

 age, occurring at different levels above the Thames, which laid them 

 down before it had cut out the valley to its present depth. Excava- 

 tions in these river terraces yield mammalian bones almost 

 everywhere. 



Sometimes a cold or Arctic fauna is met with. A fine large antler 

 of reindeer and part of the frontlet of a bison were dug up in 

 Euckingham Palace Road in 1891, and similar remains were again 

 found associated at Twickenham in 1894. With the latter Dr. J. R. 

 Leeson discovered a characteristic frontlet of the saiga antelope, 

 which lives now only on the steppes to the east of the Volga. A still 

 more Arctic animal, the musk-ox, is represented in the British Museum 

 by fragments from Plumstead Marshes, Crayforcl, and Maidenhead. 

 Remains of the mammoth (Elephas primigenius) occur abundantly, 

 and some of the best specimens have been found at the bottom of 

 the Thames deposits, directly on the London Clay. Several parts 

 of the skeleton of a young mammoth were discovered thus in an 

 excavation at Endsleigh Street, Bloomsbury, in 1892. More 

 fragmentary remains of the same animal were dug up in 1903 and 

 1909 in a peaty bed on the London Clay beneath the Daily Chronicle 

 office, Eleet Street, associated with very fine skulls of old and young 

 individuals of the woolly rhinoceros (Rhinoceros antiquitatis), which 

 were given to the British Museum by Mr. Erank Lloyd. More 

 recently part of the humerus of a lion has been found in the same 

 deposit. 



Evidence of a warmer Pleistocene fauna occurs in several places, 

 and the collection of bones and teeth obtained in 1879 from the 

 foundations of Drummond's Bank, Charing Cross, may be mentioned 

 in illustration. I am indebted to Mr. Charles Drummond and the 

 Manager of the Bank for the opportunity of examining this collection, 

 which is still preserved there. The lion is represented by three 



