42 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 



the water-dog, an evidence of its aboriginal nativity 

 in Scotland ; and its existence in Britain is noticed 

 in a romance not anterior to the twelfth century,* of 

 which the materials were probably derived from 

 "Wales. 



It must be confessed that the written records we 

 have of its occurrence are very fragmentary, and not 

 wholly satisfactory ; but abundant evidence of its 

 former existence in this country at a date long 

 anterior to these historical notices is supplied by the 

 remains of the animal which have been exhumed in 

 various places, both in England and Scotland. 



In the third volume of the " Memoirs of the Wer- 

 nerian Nat. Hist. Society" (182 1, p. 207), is an 

 account by the late" Dr. Neill of some remains of 

 Beavers found in Perthshire at the Loch of Marlee, 

 Kinloch, and in Middlestots Bog, Kimmerghame, in 

 Berwickshire, t Another skull exhumed at Linton, 

 in Roxburghshire, is preserved in the Museum at 

 Kelso. J Other remains of Beavers, considered to 

 be identical with the species found in North America 

 at the present day, have been discovered at Mun- 

 desley, Bacton, and Happesburg, Norfolk, in the 

 fluvio-marine crag near Southwold, Suffolk, in the 

 peat near Newbury,§ and in the Thames Valley at 

 Crossness Point, near Erith. || 



* Fragment of the " Romance of Sir Tristram," MS. in the Douce 

 Collection, No. 2. 



t See, also, Dr. C. Wilson, ' On the Prior Existence of the Castor 

 fiber in Scotland,' Edinb. New Phil. Journ., 1858, N.S., vol. viii. 



J " Proc. Berwicks. Nat. Club," vol. ii. p. 48. 



§ Collet, "Phil. Trans,," 1757, p. 112. 



II Boyd Dawkins, Popular Science Review, 1868, p. 39. 



