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 Cervus, Bison, and Bos.
Of the first there are seven specimens of the Great Irish Deer,
and fifty of the Red 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 300.
"This evidence of numbers is important as tending to
prove that the heavy Bovidae 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 Ruminants 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 Rhinoceros are but few. This evidence leads
to the assumption also that the Rhinoceros 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 Rhinoceros, 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-