THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 893.— November 15th 1915. 



PLEISTOCENE AND LATER BIRD FAUNA OF GREAT 

 BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



By Alfred Bell. 



It may be of service to those interested in the history of the 

 avifauna of Great Britain and Ireland to have for reference a 

 digest of the scanty records of former bird-life left in the 

 dens, caves, fens, clays, marshes, and river alluvia of these 

 kingdoms, and in the shell mounds and refuse-heaps of our 

 stone-using forerunners, and in the Celtic lake-dwellings, and 

 on Romano-British dwelling-places. 



Caves, as may be inferred, are the richest depositories of 

 these remains. In those where the bones occur in two distinct 

 layers or strata, these have a tendency to become intermixed, 

 owing to the burrowing habits of Rabbits, Badgers, and Foxes. 

 To the same animals and the Wild Cats we are probably in- 

 debted for the presence of the Common Fowl, Goose, Duck, and 

 Pheasant, birds introduced by our Celtic and Roman invaders. 

 The last newcomer, the Turkey, is more common in Ireland 

 than in England, occurring in the upper layers of nearly every 

 Irish cave deposit. 



Very few birds are quoted from the older bone- caves of 

 Derbyshire or of the south-west coast, so rich in the larger 

 mammalia. It would seem from the success that has attended 

 later workers that the rarity was due to a looser method of 

 examining the cave debris rather than to their absence, as the 

 early caves of Ballynamintra, Shandon, Castlepook, are all more 

 or less productive. 



Zool. Mh ser. vol. XIX., November, 1915. 2 i 



