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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



Life in Early Britain ; being an Account of the Early Inhabitants 

 of this Island and the Memorials which they have left behind 

 them. By Bertram C. A. Windle, D.S., &c. David Nutt. 



Zoologists who feel an interest in their own species, and 

 would study some of the early factors which have served to mould 

 the British race, will find this little book very helpful, and it is one 

 that was much needed. It sketches the prehistoric and eohistoric 

 eras in this country, from Palaeolithic times to the Saxon occupa- 

 tion, and spans the period commencing when human weapons 

 consisted of unpolished stone implements, to the iron sword, the 

 coat of mail, and the Anglo-Saxon Church. 



But these annals cannot be confined to a purely archaeological 

 consideration, nor can they be properly separated from the details 

 of the early British fauna. Palaeolithic man, who has not left an 

 arrow-head to show us that he was acquainted with the use of the 

 bow, lived in a Britain — still connected with the Continent — that 

 would now be considered a hunter's paradise. The Hippo- 

 potamus, two species alike of Elephant and Rhinoceros, a cave 

 Bear and a cave Lion, Hyaena, Bison, wild Horse, and Reindeer 

 formed a wild Game which was ample for these poorly equipped 

 savages " to chase and be chased by." Even in later Neolithic 

 times, when England had been separated by the sea from the 

 Continent and from Ireland, and primitive man, though still in 

 the Stone Age, was better armed, although the larger animals had 

 become extinct, there was still a fine mammalian fauna one would 

 fain have seen. Our author here wisely quotes the graphic nar- 

 rative of Boyd Dawkins. There were " wild boars, horses, roes 

 and stags, Irish elks, true elks and reindeer, and the great wild 

 ox, the urus, as well as the Alpine hare, the common hare, and 

 the rabbit. Wolves, foxes and badgers, martens and wild cats 

 were abundant ; the brown bear, and the closely allied variety the 

 grisly bear, were the two most formidable competitors of man in 



