﻿XIV 



INTRODUCTION. 



Prehistoric age as the Urus of Scotland and the Megaceros of Ireland, found in the marl 

 at the bottom of the peat. It is worthy of remark that this animal was eaten by the 

 dwellers in the Lake-villages of Moosedorf, Wauwyl, Meilen, Robenhausen, Concise, and 

 Bienne, according to Professor Riitimeyer. 



In digging the foundations of the large works at Crossness Point for the southern out- 

 fall of the metropolitan sewage a most interesting collection of Prehistoric Mammalia was 

 made from the peat and silt. We identified red deer, Bos longifrons, goat, beaver, horse ; 

 and among the remains forwarded to the British Museum is a remarkably fine antler of 

 reindeer {Cervus tar andus), which Mr. Houghton, the engineer, informs us came from the 

 bottom of the peat at a depth of fifteen feet below the surface. A large number of cases 

 of similar discoveries may be quoted, as in the estuarine mud of Selsea, of the hind and 

 fore legs of Bos longifrons, with all the bones, to the smallest sesamoids, in place, or in 

 a silted-up river-bed at Waterbeach Mills, near Cambridge, of the same animal, associated 

 with the red deer, goat, horse, and wolf. 



§ 4. The following list, which probably will be largely increased, represents the mam- 

 malia derived from the Prehistoric deposits, and includes those species that began to live 

 in the Pleistocene, and are living in Britain at the present day, and which therefore must 

 have lived in the Prehistoric Period, although their remains have not yet been discovered 

 in it. The latter are marked with an asterisk. It consists of thirty-four species. 



Homo sapiens, Lin. 



Ehinoloplius Ferrum Equinum, Leach. 



Vespertilio noctula, Geoff'. 



Talpa Europsea, Lin. 



Sorex vulgaris,* Lin. 



Felis catus ferus, Schreb. 



Canis familiaris, Lin. 



„ vulpes, Lin. 



„ lupus, Lin. 

 Mustela erminea,* Lin. 

 „ martes,* Lin. 

 „ putorius,* Lin. 

 Lutra vulgaris, Erxl. 

 Meles taxus, Schreb. 

 Ursus arctos, Lin. 

 Mus musculus, Lin. 

 Castor fiber, Lin. 



Arvicola amphibia, Desm. 

 „ pratensis,* Bell. 

 „ agrestis,* Pall. 

 Lepus timidus, Fabr. 



„ cuniculus, Lin. 

 Equus caballus, Lin. 

 Alces malchis, Gray. 

 Megaceros Hibernicus, Owen. 

 Cervus Tarandus, Lin. 



„ elaphus, Lin. 



„ capreolus, Lin. 

 Ovis aries, Lin. 

 Capra segagrus, Gmel. 



„ hircus, Gmel. 

 Bos longifrons, Owen. 



„ Urus, Caesar (=B. primigenius, Boj.) 

 Sus scrofa, Lin. 



The absence of the squirrel and dormouse from this list may, perhaps, be owing to 

 their arboreal habits, which would render the chances of their bones being found in caverns 

 or river-deposits very remote. Both genera and perhaps both the English species occur 

 in the French Pliocene strata. 



