Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/68

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A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK and roe are also stated to have been dug up in the peat of Undley Fen, Mildenhall ; while a single roe antler from Burnt Fen, Mildenhall, is in the possession of Mr. Norgate. From river gravel at Warren Hill, Mildenhall, the gentleman last named records remains of the Pleistocene bison [Bos priscus) in associa- tion with those of the mammoth and chipped flint implements. In addition doubtless to many other localities in the county, remains of the red deer {Cervus elaphus) are known from Woodbridge, and those of the giant fallow deer or ' Irish elk ' (C. giganteus) and roe-deer [Capreolus capreolus) from Ipswich. Bones and teeth of the wild horse {Equus caballus fossilis) are recorded from Ipswich, Felixstow and Kingston near Woodbridge, and those of the great woolly Siberian two-horned rhino- ceros [Rhinoceros antiquitatis) from gravel at Ipswich. Remains of the mammoth [Elephas primigenius), the Pleistocene representative of the existing Indian elephant, occur in river deposits in many parts of the county, notably Bury St. Edmunds, Hoxne, Icklingham, Ipswich, Orford and Southwold. Mr. Norgate writes that molars and tusks which he assigns to the mammoth and its relative the straight-tusked elephant [E. antiquus) were found some years ago in considerable numbers in gravel at the back of the old gaol at Bury St. Edmunds. The mammoth remains from Icklingham in the valley of the Lark near Bury St. Edmunds were associated with roughly hewn flint implements.^ Al- though no mammalian remains have been obtained from the stratum at Hoxne which yielded the celebrated flint implements described by Mr. John Frere in the year 1806, bones of red deer, horse and mam- moth have been dug up from an underlying bed.^ In 1876 the British Museum acquired an associated series of molar teeth and tusks, together with a vertebra, of a small individual of the extinct race of the hippo- potamus [Hippopotamus amphibius major), which had been dug out of a superficial deposit at Lavenham.' Among the mammals recorded from the Forest Bed within the limits of the county are the wolf [Canis lupus) from Kessingland, the cave race of the South African spotted hysna [Hycena crocuta spelcea), from both Kessingland and Corton, and the great cave-bear [Ursus spelceus). Remains of the red deer and of that race of the giant fallow deer, or ' Irish elk,' commonly known as Cervus verticornis, but pre- ferably designated C. giganteus belgrandi, have also been obtained at Kessingland and Pakefield * near Lowestoft. The former locality has likewise afforded evidence of the presence of the wild boar [Sus scrofa ferus), the horse, and the extinct Etruscan rhinoceros [Rhinoceros etruscus). Although not uncommon in the Pliocene deposits of the Val d Arno, Tuscany, remains of the species last named are rare in Britain, where they have been met with only in the Forest Bed of Norfolk and Suf-r 1 See Prestwich, ^art. Jount. Geol. Soc. xvii. 363, and Lyell, Jnti'juily of Man, ed. 3, 169.

  • See Lyell, op. cit. p. 167, and Howorth, Geol. Mag. (4) viii. 337 (1901).

^ See Cat. Foss. Mamm. Brit. Mus. ii. 279.

  • Specimens in Norwich Museum.

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