The Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) is fairly common.
It is remarkable that we get very few remains of Wolf, although it is not much more than 200 years since the last was killed. There is in the Sedgwick Museum one fairly complete skeleton, found a long time ago in Burwell Fen and I have recently obtained another from the same locality. There do not seem to be any obvious and constant characters by which we can distinguish a wolf from a dog, and Britain was celebrated for its large and fierce dogs. The bones of the Eskimo dogs are very wolf-like, but they are frequently crossed with wolf.
Perhaps the most interesting animal whose remains are found in the Fens is the Beaver. Why do we not find here and there a beaver dam? Perhaps it is because we have not been on the look-out for it, and the peat-cutters would not have seen anything remarkable in the occurrence of a quantity of timber anywhere in the Fens. We must suppose that the peat which often contains whole forests of trees and even canoes would have preserved the timber of the beaver dam. It is an animal too which might have contributed largely towards the formation of the Fens by holding up and diverting meandering streams. Perhaps it did not make dams down in the Fens, and the skeletons we find are those of stray individuals or of dead animals which have floated down from dams near Trumpington or Chesterford; very suitable places for them. We want more evidence about the fen beaver.
I have heard that there are beavers in the Danube which do not make dams, but among those introduced into this country in recent years the dam building instinct seems to have survived the change. The beavers on the Marquis of Bute's property in Scotland cut down trees and built dams as did the beavers in Sir Edmund Loder's park in Sussex, and even in the Zoological Gardens they recently constructed a "lodge." We have not found the beaver in the Gravels.
Part of the skull of a Walrus was brought to us a long time ago and said to have been found in the peat. But it is a very suspicious case. It does not look like a bone that had been long entombed in peat, and we are not so far from the coast as to make it improbable that it was carried there by some sailor returning home from northern seas.
Bones of Cetaceans are thrown up on the shore near Hunstanton, and Seals are still not uncommon in the Wash, so that we need not attach much importance to the occurrence in marine silt of Whale, Grampus, Porpoise, and such like.
Birds.
We have paid much attention to the birds of the Fens, partly because of the occurrence of some unexpected species, and also because of the absence, so far as our collection goes, of species of which we should expect to find large numbers.
Perhaps the most interesting are the remains of Pelican (P. crispus or onocrotalus)[8]. Of this we have two bones, not associated nor in the same state of preservation. The determination we have on the authority of Alphonse Milne Edwards and Professor Alfred Newton. One of the bones is that of a bird so young that it cannot have flown over but shows that it must have been hatched or carried here.
Of the Crane (Grus cinerea) we have a great number of bones but of the common Heron not one. I have placed a recent skeleton of heron in the case to help us to look out for and determine any that may turn up. Bones of the Bittern (Botaurus or Ardea stellaris) are quite common, as are those of the Mute or tame Swan (Cygnus olor) as well as of the Hooper or wild Swan (Cygnus musicus or ferus). Goose (Anser) and Duck (Anas) are not so numerous as one might have expected. The Grey Goose (Anser ferus) and the Mallard (Anas boscas) are the most common, but other species are found, as for instance Anas grecca. We have also the Red Breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator), and the Smew (Mergus albellus), the Razor Bill (Alea tarda), the Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola), the Water Hen (Gallinula chloropus) and a few bones of a Limicoline bird, most likely a lapwing. We have found the skull, but no more, of the White-tailed or Sea Eagle (Haliaetus albicilla). The whole is a strangely small collection considering all the circumstances.