Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/78

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A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK Among the true dolphins and porpoises a species of killer-whale, probably identical with an Italian Pliocene form described as Orca citoni- ensis, is represented in the Red Crag nodule bed of the county by a tooth in the Ipswich Museum and a periotic in the Museum of Practical Geology. Certain teeth and ear-bones from the nodule bed originally described as Delphinus uncidens appear generically identical with the so- called blackfish, and are accordingly now known as Globicephalus uncidens. A specimen from the Red Crag nodule bed of the county, supposed to be the swollen base of the aborted tusk of a narwhal, has been considered sufficient to justify the inclusion of the genus Monodon in the Crag fauna. Possibly two Red Crag vertebra; in the Jermyn Street Museum may afford evidence of the occurrence of a species of white whale [Delphi- napterus) in the Crag sea. Finally a vertebra from the Coralline Crag of Ramsholt in the British Museum, and two others from the same forma- tion in the Museum of Practical Geology, may be referable to a dolphin of the genus Tursiops. Very noteworthy is the occurrence in the Suffolk deposits of remains of an albatross, for which the name Diomedea anglica has been proposed by the present writer.' The species is typified by two bones of the foot, now in the Ipswich Museum, found in the sandy bed overlying the Red Crag at Foxhall, and most probably of Red Crag age. Part of a wing-bone (ulna) from the Coralline Crag at Orford, preserved in the Museum of Practical Geology, belongs to the same or an allied species. It may be added that the museum last named also possesses a wing-bone (ulna) of an albatross from the brick-earth of Ilford, Essex. The fishes of the Crag are for the most part represented by detached teeth. Among these certain smooth and polished molar-like teeth, specimens of which are known from the Red Crag of Woodbridge, Waldringfield and elsewhere, as well as from the Coralline Crag of Gedgrave, indicate a species of sea-bream generically identical with the existing gilt-head [Chrysophrys aurata). They do not however admit of specific determination. To the family of the horse-mackerels belongs Platax woodwardi, a species commonly occurring in the Forest Bed and Norwich Crag, but also represented in the Red Crag of Felixstow and elsewhere, and, it is said, in the Coralline Crag. An extinct thunny {Thynnus scaldist), first described from the Antwerp Crag, is known by vertebrae from the Coralline Crag of Aldeburgh and elsewhere. A single tooth in the Museum of Practical Geology from the Coralline Crag of Gedgrave presents no characters by which it can be distinguished from the existing wolf-fish, Anarrhichas lupus. A wrasse of the genus Labrus is indicated by a specimen of the lower pharyngeal bone from the Red Crag of the county, preserved in the British Museum. Species of cod {Gadus) are indicated by ear-bones (otoliths) from the Coralline Crag of Sudbourn, Broomhill, near Orford and elsewhere ; others from ' Cat. Foil. Birdi Brit. Mui. 189 (1891). 42