The Ancient Fauna of Essex. 
25 
collection, numbering more than 500 specimens, consisting 
of teeth, skulls, jaws, limb and other bones, with antlers and 
horn-cores, belonging to the genera Genus, Bison, and Bos. 
Of the first there are seven specimens of the Great Irish Deer, 
and fifty of the Eed Deer, besides thirteen fragments of 
undetermined species; making an aggregate of seventy 
objects. The Bison, judging from the paucity of its remains 
in the collection,—only thirty-four,—was a rare animal, 
when compared with those of its congener, the large Bos, 
which exceed 800. 
“ This evidence of numbers is important as tending to 
prove that the heavy Bovidse were either subjected to greater 
casualties by floods or other causes than the lighter and 
more fleet Cervidae, or that they existed in greater numbers 
and roamed in very much larger herds. It also tends to 
prove that the Buminants numerically surpassed the whole 
of the other Herbivores, the Mammoth alone being com¬ 
parable in this respect with the Oxen, but surpassing them 
in size and weight; and compared with which the bones of 
the Horse and Bhinoceros are but few. This evidence leads 
to the assumption also that the Bhinoceros was not a 
common animal in the Pleistocene country whence the 
bones of the numerous animals deposited at Ilford were 
derived. For assuming that its habits were similar to 
those of the existing Bhinoceros, we should expect to 
meet with its remains generally in places and under con¬ 
ditions better adapted for their preservation, and hence 
more frequently than those of other co-existing types of 
Mammalia. 
“It is a fact worth noting, that of this assemblage of 
vertebrate remains it is seldom that two or more bones of 
the same animal are found in juxtaposition, showing that 
they did not find their resting-place where the animals died, 
but have been floated probably for long distances, from the 
upper tributaries of the ancient Thames, and subsequently 
deposited in these fluviatile beds. But from whatever 
distance they may have been conveyed to this particular 
spot, they have been subjected to no rolling or water- 
