A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK a member of the cat tribe agreeing approximately in size with the leopard is represented by a lower carnassial or flesh-tooth from the Red Crag of Newbourn near Woodbridge. Upon this specimen, which is preserved in the museum at Ipswich, Sir R. Owen ^ founded his Felts pardoides, but there is no evidence to show that this is really distinct from the leopard [F. pardus), of which it probably represents an extinct race. A second tooth of the same feline subsequently found near Newbourn was also described by Owen.^ Although the spotted hyasna is unknown in the Crag, the striped species is represented by certain cheek-teeth from the Red Crag of Felixstow originally described by Professor E. Ray Lankester' as Hyana antiqua ; as well as by a right upper carnassial in the Ipswich Museum from the Red Crag of Trimley St. Mary, and a corresponding tooth of the opposite side, preserved in the York Museum, from Woodbridge. The latter specimens present no characters by which they can be satisfactorily distinguished from the corresponding teeth of the existing striped hysna, but since the Crag representative of that animal probably formed a distinct race, it may be designated H. striata antiqua. Remains of the wolf [Canis lupus) have been recorded from the Forest Bed within the county, and the occurrence of the same species in the Red Crag is indicated by three teeth in the York Museum, two of which came from Boyton. The imperfect skull of a fox (C. vulpes) from above the nodule bed at the latter place, now preserved in the British Museum, has been regarded by some as not a true Red Crag fossil, but this opinion was not shared by the late Mr. R. Bell, by whom it was collected. A worn tooth, now in the York Museum, from the Red Crag of Woodbridge, was described by Professor Lankester as Canis primigenius, but, judging from the structure of the enamel, Mr. Newton is inclined to believe that it is really cetacean. Among the weasel family it is possible that the polecat [Mustela putorius) may have lived in the Crag period, as the British Museum possesses a fragment of the lower jaw of that animal from the Coralline Crag of Orford ; it does not appear however to be certain that the specimen is really of Crag age. An otter, provisionally identified with the extinct continental species known as Lutra dubia, is represented by a lower jaw from the Red Crag nodule bed of Foxhall near Wood- bridge.* Of far greater interest is a fragment of a lower jaw from the nodule bed of the Red Crag at Felixstow, now preserved in the York Museum, which has been described under the name of JElurus anglicus by Professor W, B. Dawkins.^ The genus to which this species belongs is represented at the present day only by the long- tailed panda or red cat-bear {/E. splendens) of the eastern Himalaya, and till the identification of the fossil jaw no extinct representative of the group was known. Another fragment of the jaw of the Crag species,
- Brit. Foss. Mamm. and Birds, p. 169 (1846). ^ ^arl. Journ. Geo/. Soc. xii. 266 (1856).
- jinn. Mag. Nat. Hist. (3) xiii. 56. * See Newton, op. cit. p. 12.
- Sluart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xlvi. 451 (1890).
34
