Prior Existence of the Castor Fiber in Scotland. 81 



been made at Hilgay, in Norfolk, where they were found as- 

 sociated with those of the great Irish deer, A lower jaw, 

 found in 1818 near Chatteris, is recorded in the Proceedings 

 of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. In at least three 

 other instances, all referred to by Professor Owen, the remains 

 of the beaver have been found in the peat-mosses of Berkshire, 

 and in the Cambridge fens ; while other discoveries, at Mun- 

 desley, Bacton, Southwold, and Happisburg in Norfolk, and 

 at Thorpe in Suffolk, appear under relations which seem to 

 carry the antiquity of the beaver in England farther back 

 into the tertiary period, and ought probably to be referred to 

 a different, yet closely allied species. In Denmark, we learn 

 from a highly interesting communication by Professor Steen- 

 strup,^ that a lower jaw, with the greater part of the 

 extremities of a beaver, evidently belonging to an individual 

 animal, was discovered in the moss of Christiansholm ; and 

 that a tooth has also been found in Fyen, all the other traces 

 hitherto of its former existence within the Danish territories 

 having been limited to Sjselland. Specimens of stems, 

 evidently gnawed by the beaver's teeth, were taken from 

 Mariendals moss, the special locality being regarded by the 

 Professor as probably occupying the former bed of a stream, 

 which had been once its habitat. Similar stems from two to 

 four inches thick, with beaver marks, were seen in Bronsholm 

 moss, in great quantity, and laid with remarkable regularity ; 

 while a like deposit, at a depth of about three feet, occurred 

 in a moss near Lyngsbye.f In these interesting facts, we 

 appear to recognise distinctly the remains of the dams of the 

 beaver, and the familiar evidences of its singular constructive 

 faculties. Perhaps we may further refer to a period not 

 remote from that of these relics in the mosses, the location of 

 three beaver's teeth, in a greatly damaged condition, at the 

 side of a human skeleton, which was found in a tomb of 

 an ancient Lap, opened recently^ at Mortensnses, on the 

 Varangerfjord, in the extreme north-east of Norway, a 

 country, however, in which the beaver is still indigenous. A 

 stone hammer, bearing marks of use, lay in the same grave. 

 When we turn from these sufficiently decisive indications 

 of the ancient resorts of the beaver, and seek for other evi- 

 dences of a historical, topographical, or documentary character 

 in relation to its former existence in Britain, if these are 



* Oversigt over det Kgl. danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Forhandlinger, 

 1855, p. 381. 



t Ibid., pp. 2, 382. 



J Forhandlinger af danske Videnskab. Selsk. ; Illiistreret Nyhedsblad, 

 (Christiania, 1856), pp. 97, 104. 



F 



