PALAEONTOLOGY 



deposits, both at Leicester and Barrow, have been obtained remains referable 

 to the domesticated sheep or goat. 



Of the red deer (Cervus elaphus) antlers and bones have been discovered 

 in refuse-heaps at Barrow on Soar and other localities in the county, which 

 are probably of Prehistoric age. Other antlers in the Leicester Museum, one 

 of which is from the Abbey Meadow, and a second from North Bridge, were 

 dug up at considerable depths below the surface, apparently in the gravel, 

 and indicate stags of large size. Certain remains from the gravels of the 

 county which were referred to the fallow deer and roebuck 3 appear to have 

 been wrongly identified. On the other hand, a small number of antlers and 

 bones from the Belgrave and other gravels in the county are certainly referable 

 to the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus}. The finest antler of this species obtained 

 up to the date of publication of Mr. Browne's book is one found in 

 excavating the pit for a gasometer in river-gravel near Aylestone in 1888, at 

 a depth of between loft, and n ft. below the surface. 



Tusks of the wild boar (Sus scrofaferus) have been dug up in deposits of 

 Prehistoric age in several localities in the county, several of these having 

 been bored and used as ornaments by early man. A pair of tusks of the same 

 species was dug up in Friar Lane, Leicester, in 1867, and a smaller pair in 

 Abbey Street, but the formation in which they occurred is not mentioned. 

 From the alluvium at Bede House Meadows were obtained in 1888 certain 

 remains which it is suggested may belong to a breed very similar to the 

 so-called Sus pa/ustris, the domesticated swine of the Prehistoric Swiss lake- 

 dwellers. 



Passing on to the fossil reptiles of the county, it has to be noted that 

 nearly all these are from the Lower Lias of Barrow on Soar, and belong to 

 the two great marine orders Ichthyopterygia, or Ichthyosauria, and Sauro- 

 pterygia, or Plesiosauria. Some of the Barrow specimens of the former 

 group are, however, of more than ordinary interest on account of showing 

 the outline and impression of the integument of the paddles preserved in the 

 fine Lias mud. The Ichthyopterygia, or ' fish-lizards,' it may be observed, 

 are characterized by the short neck, large head (with a ring of bones in the 

 sclerotic, or 'white' of the eye), paddles composed of a number of polygonal 

 bones arranged in pavement-like fashion, and by the short double-cupped 

 discs formed by the bodies of the vertebrae, which are quite separable from 

 the arches, or portion enclosing the spinal marrow. In the Sauropterygia, 

 on the other hand, the neck is typically long and the head small and without 

 a ring of bones in the eye, while the bones of the paddles are elongated and 

 not articulated to form a pavement-like structure, and the bodies of the 

 vertebrae are more or less elongated, only slightly cupped, and firmly articu- 

 lated with the arches. The members of both groups were marine, and some 

 of them attained a length of as much as 30 ft. They were, in fact, the 

 whales of the Secondary period. Of the Barrow ichthyosaurs, the most 

 abundant species seems to be the typical Ichthyosaurus communis, characterized 

 by its broad, many-rowed paddles ; the Dublin Museum of Science and Art 

 containing no less than thirteen Leicestershire skeletons assigned to this 

 species. One of the earliest known specimens from Barrow is a skull 

 preserved in the museum of the Philosophical Institution at Birmingham, 



' Plant, Rep. Lett. Lit, and Phil. Sac. (1874), 37. 

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