106 EPPING FOREST
when these animals lived here Britain was united
to Ireland, and also to the Continent, and was not
isolated as she is to-day.
2. I had the opportunity in 1868-69 to care-
fully examine the excavations for reservoirs then in
course of construction by the East London Water-
works Company, near Lea Bridge, Walthamstow
Marshes (see map B).
In this area the deposits excavated consisted
of surface-soil, loamy clay, peat, shell-marl, coarse
and fine sands, rounded and subangular gravels.
Land and freshwater shells belonging to some
thirteen genera and twenty-six species were ob-
tained from the shell-marl, whilst the peat and
shell-marl also yielded abundant remains of animals,
comprising great numbers of wolves and foxes;
the beaver (Castor europaeus); the wild-boar of all
ages; red-deer, roebuck, fallow-deer, goat; great
abundance of heads and limbs, etc., of small British
cattle (Bos longifrons) [and some rare remains of
the elk, the reindeer, and the great ox (Bos primi-
genius), perhaps belonging to the older deposit
already referred to], and bones of an eagle.
If we except the great ox, the elk, and the
reindeer, we are here dealing with a deposit far
younger than is indicated by No. 1. All the
animals belong to the existing fauna, and the only
ones not living in this country now are the beaver,
the wolf, and the wild-boar; these are, however,
still met with in Europe (although the beaver is
becoming rapidly extinct). The small breed of
British wild cattle (Bos longifrons) were probably
the ancestors of our small Welsh cattle, and were
"improved" out in Roman and later times by
larger and better continental stock introduced from
France and Normandy.
All these animals have survived in this country
down to historic times, as our written records prove.
I dug out of the reservoir bank a well-made flint
scraper with my own hands from a bed of dark
loamy clay 3 feet below the surface; whilst my late
colleague, Sir Wollaston Franks, of the British
Museum, obtained from the workmen bronze