Prior Existence of the Castor Fiber in Scotland. 77 



of Edrom, near the head of that district of Berwickshire called 

 the Merse. In the process of Draining a morass called Middle- 

 stots Bog, there was found, at the depth of seven feet from the 

 surface, under a layer of peat-moss of that thickness, what 

 appeared to have been the complete skeleton of a beaver, 

 dispersed, however, in rather a promiscuous manner, as if 

 through the gradual separation of the parts by unequal sub- 

 sidence. 1 he remains lay upon a surface of marl, in which 

 they were partly imbedded, and partly in a whitish layer of 

 mossy substance immediately superjacent. Only the denser 

 bones of the cranium and face, and the jaw-bones, retained 

 sufficient firmness to fit them for being removed and preserved 

 in a dry state. Several of the long bones and the vertebrae, 

 though they seemed perfect while lying in situ, crumbled 

 under the touch, or after exposure. Near the same spot were 

 found a pair of horns, of great size, and with fine antlers, 

 belonging to- the large species of deer already mentioned ; 

 and, among the vegetable remains in the peat, were the shells 

 of filberts, with the wood of birch and alder, and that of oak 

 in less abundance. The skull and lower jaw-bone are now in 

 the museum of the University of Edinburgh. Both, as de- 

 scribed by Dr. Neill, were entire, with all the incisors perfect, 

 their cutting edges sharp, and the peculiar coloured enamel, 

 found alike in the recent beaver, still subsisting on the outer 

 convexity, though deepened to an almost jet-black. The molars 

 were also complete. This is still the condition, with the excep- 

 tion that the right zygomatic arch is now imperfect. The 

 animal, as in the preceding instance, appears to have been of 

 mature, though not of advanced age. It is proper to add here, 

 that, on the testimony^ of the writer of the Statistical Account 

 of the parish, several other heads of the beaver were then 

 found in the same deposit, but in less perfect preservation. 

 We have thus approximative evidence of the ancient existence 

 of a colony in the locality. 



Of a third instance of the discovery of the remains of the 

 beaver in Scotland, a verbal report was given by me, in 1843, 

 at a meeting of the Club, and is noticedt in the late esteemed 

 Dr. Johnston's sketch of its proceedings for that year. On 

 the verge of the parish of Linton, in Roxburghshire, there is 

 a remnant of what has evidently once been a far more exten- 

 sive loch, which had skirted for some distance the outer range 

 of the Cheviot Bills, but which, from some alteration of the 



* The Statistical Account of Scotland : County of Berwick (1841), p. 267. 

 t History of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, vol. ii., p. 48. 



