REPTILES 

 AND BATRACHIANS 



This section of the fauna of Norfolk will occupy a very small 

 space, but there are two facts to which I should like briefly to refer. 

 The first is the discovery of the remains of the European freshwater 

 tortoise {Emys orbicularis^ Linn.) in certainly a very recent deposit, and 

 under circumstances which, regarded in conjunction with other finds in 

 the same neighbourhood, seem to render it not impossible that this species 

 may have existed contemporaneously with the human inhabitants of the 

 locality. This interesting occurrence was brought to light through the 

 vigilance of Professor Newton, and was by him communicated to the 

 Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist, for September, 1862 (vol. x. p. 224). In 

 the year 1836 Mr. Wyrley Birch, the proprietor of the Wretham 

 estate, when cleaning out a peat bog by the side of a spring pit at East 

 Wretham, found, about seven feet below the surface and beneath a bed of 

 hypnum, a number of bones and a good part of the outer skeletons of 

 two small tortoises, which proved to belong to this species. It is worthy 

 of mention that in another lake or ' mere ' in the parish of West 

 Wretham, the remains of a pile building were discovered, around which 

 were a very large number of the bones of Bos longifrons and Cervus 

 elaphus, which, in addition to the artificial character of the site in which 

 they were found, bore evident traces of man's handiwork. Professor 

 Newton expresses the opinion that the manner in which these bones had 

 been treated is not only conclusive evidence that the long-faced ox was 

 contemporaneous with man, but also strong presumptive evidence that 

 this animal was domesticated by the aborigines of Britain before the 

 Roman invasion. 



The remains of Emys orbicularis have also been found, in the year 

 1863, in the deposit known as the ' Mundesley river bed,' a freshwater 

 deposit of small extent on the Norfolk coast of post-glacial origin.' 



The other species to which I wish to refer is the edible frog {Rana 

 esculenta, Linn.), which, even if it be a doubtful native, has so curious and 

 interesting a history in this and the adjoining county of Cambridgeshire 

 that it should not be passed over without a brief notice. This Batrachian 

 was discovered at Whaddon, and in Foulmire Fen in Cambridgeshire, 

 as long ago as the year 1 844, and Professor Bell was assured that it had 



• See E. T. Newton, Geol. Mag., 1879, p. 304 ; and H. B. Woodward, Trans. Nor/, 

 and Nor. Nat. Soc, iii. (1880) p. 36. 



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