Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/69

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PALEONTOLOGY folk, and quite recently in the Pliocene cave at Dove Holes near Buxton, Derbyshire. Of the great southern elephant {Elephas meridio- nalis), the Norwich Museum possesses some fine teeth and jaws from Corton and Pakefield. From the Forest Bed of both Suffolk and Nor- folk have been obtained remains of an extinct vole, Mimomys intermedius, which has recently been made the type of a special genus' common to the Forest Bed and the Norwich Crag, and characterized by its partially rooted cheek teeth and the presence of an islet of enamel on the worn crown of the last of the series. The Forest Bed at Pakefield has yielded a cetacean tooth apparently belonging to the existing killer-whale [Orca orcd). Of fishes, remains of the perch [Perca Jiuviatilts) are recorded from the Forest Bed at Kessingland. More common are the clavicles and so-called ' butterfly bones ' (really fin-supports) of the extinct horse- mackerel Platax woodwardi, which are also known from the Norwich Crag of Easton Bavent. Of the few mammalian remains that have been obtained from the Norwich Crag in Suffolk perhaps the most interesting are certain molar teeth of the straight-tusked elephant [Elephas antiquus) from Easton and Southwold.^ In many cases this species was a contemporary of the mammoth, but here it occurs in an horizon where the latter animal is unknown. Remains of the otter have been said by Sir R. Owen [British Fossil Mammals and Birds, p. 121) to have been discovered in the Nor- wich Crag at Southwold, but the statement has not been substantiated by subsequent researches.^ Some kind of hollow-horned ruminant is indi- cated by a bone of the hind-leg (metatarsal) from the Norwich Crag at Easton. Fragments of teeth from the same locality and deposit apparently belong to the mastodon referred to below as Mastodon borsoni. A frag- ment of the lower part of the (incisor) tooth of a beaver from the Norwich Crag of Sizewell Gap near Southwold was long considered to belong to the living European beaver. According however to Mr. E. T. Newton * it is more probably referable to the extinct Forest Bed genus known as Trogontherium, and possibly to the small 7". minus. This speci- men is in the collection of the Geological Society of London. From Kyson have been obtained remains of an extinct vole [Mimomys pliocenicus), of which the typical horizon is the Pliocene of the Val d'Arno.^ Specimens in the Norwich Museum from the Chillesford Crag beds of Aldeby were identified many years ago by Sir W. H. Flower with the dolphin [Delphinus delphis). From the same locality and deposit Sir William also identified remains of the guillemot [Uria troile). Coming to the carnivora of the Red and Coralline Crags, we find that ' See F. Major, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1902, i. 102. 2 See Newton, ' Vcrtebrata of Pliocene Deposits of Britain,' Mem. Geol. Survey, p. 47. 3 Ibid. pp. 14, 15. ■* Ibid. p. 49. ^ See F. Major, P/w. Zool. Soc. London, 1902, i. 105. M.ptiorenicus ind the smiWei M. neui/oni occur in Norfolk, but were not described when the palaeontology of that county was written. At that time Mimomys intermedius was known as Microtus intermedius. I 33 5