292 Capture of the White-tailed Eagle. 



same deposit, without the slightest clue being present by which 

 such a condition may be detected. The proposition that 

 the contemporaneous deposition of organic bodies in sedimen- 

 tary beds, is a proof of contemporaneous pre-existence, ought 

 long since to have been scouted by all geologists who have 

 the slightest insight into the operation of existing causes. 

 If a few hundred square miles of the bed of the sea along the 

 eastern coast of England, were at this moment to be elevated 

 above the level of the surrounding ocean, and the plain thus 

 formed intersected by streams, the skeletons of extinct Mam- 

 malia which are there being quietly entombed, literally by 

 hundreds of thousands, would become exposed in the same 

 abundance as they have recently been noticed in the various 

 localities alluded to by Mr. Darwin. Now we know that in 

 this case there would be no relation of contemporaneous pre- 

 existence between the tusks of the mammoth and the oyster- 

 shells adhering to them, though undoubtedly there would be 

 one of contemporaneous deposition. Had the entire skele- 

 tons, discovered by Mr. Darwin, been those of species now 

 inhabiting South America, we should have been strongly in- 

 clined to suspect that the Pampas deposit, like that now ac- 

 cumulating on some parts of our own coast, probably contain- 

 ed the remains of quadrupeds of different periods. In the 

 latter, the bones of extinct animals occur necessarily in a de- 

 tached state, but the carcasses of such of our indigenous 

 quadrupeds as may chance to be drifted down by rivers which 

 there enter the sea, would probably be inhumed entire. 



The length to which our present notice has extended, obli- 

 ges us to defer, until the publication of the second part, our 

 remarks upon the extraordinary fossil genera, Toxodon and 

 Macrauchenia. 



SHORT COMMUNICATIONS. 

 Capture of the White-tailed Eagle, (Ealco alhicilla: Penn. 

 Mont. Haliaetus alhicilla, Selby), on the Suffolk Coast, Fe- 

 bruary 22nd, 1838. — A fine specimen of this noble bird, an 

 adult female, was observed by some boatmen to fall into the 

 sea, at the mouth of the River Orwell, and not again rising, 

 they put off and secured it without difficulty : it expired in 

 a few minutes after its capture. 



The men who secured it could give no reason for its thus 

 falling, (unless it pounced at a fish, and was unable to mount 

 again), as it was in fine condition, and did not appear to 

 have been wounded. 



