was a native of Ireland in the days of the Mammoth and Reindeer, with remains of which it has been found in the lately excavated cave of Shandon. The extinction of this animal appears to have taken place long before any record of its existence was made. Some idea of the numbers of this ancient British Horse may be gathered from the fact that its remains have been recognized in no less than fifty different situations in England alone, and in northern, central, and southern Ireland; whilst, strange to say, it has not been identified in any deposits north of the Tweed. In fact, the Mammoth and Reindeer appear to have been the only large mammals which at that time frequented Scotland, where the climate was doubtless inimical to the habits and requirements of other species.
The Beaver was not uncommon in the rivers of Wales towards the close of the twelfth century, according to the Welsh author Giraldus Cambrensis. It was also, according to historians, a native of Scotland and England in the fifteenth century; but Giraldus asserts that it was not found in his time in Ireland, where up to the present day not a trace of its existence has been discovered. The bones of Beaver, Hare, Red Deer, Roebuck, Ox, Brown Bear, Wolf, and Boar have been dug up in peat-bogs; moreover, it lingered on to historical times, and was finally extirpated by man. A few are still to be found in the more remote and sequestered rivertributaries of Central and Eastern Europe,[1] and the species still flourishes in Canada, in spite of trappers and the Hudson's Bay Company.
Along with this Beaver there lived in pre-glacial times a gigantic species to which the name of Cuvier's gigantic Beaver has been given. This species, however, did not survive the glacial period, and ought not properly to be included with the quadrupeds now under consideration. The connection, however, between the two shows that the smaller and more recent species survived the intense
- ↑ In Lord Clermont's 'Guide to the Quadrupeds of Europe' (1859), it is stated (p. 83) that the Beaver, though in greatly reduced numhers, is still found in several rivers of the northern and central countries of Europe, such as the Danube, Rhine and Rhone, on which last it is recorded by Crespon as occurring from Pont St. Esprit to the sea, especially among willow plantations, on which it sometimes inflicts serious injury. It is rare in Russia, except on the Dwina and Petchora, but according to Pallas, is numerous in Siberia, Tartary and the Caucasus. As regards Siberia, see the first of the "Occasional Notes" in the present number.—Ed.
