September 1, 1894.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



195 



Indian Pliocene. A walrus (Trichechus huxleyi), apparently 

 identical with the forest-bed form, as well as two species 

 of seals, one of which is assio:ned to an extinct genus 

 (Phocanflla), complete the list of the carnivores of the red 

 crag ; and it may be added that the occurrence of the 

 former is not out of harmony with the climatic condition 

 indicated by the molluscs. 



Neither oxen, musk-ox, sheep, or goats are known from 

 the crag ; but a gazelle, apparently extinct, from the 

 Norwich crag is of considerable interest as indicating the 

 probable existence in England at that period of open, more 

 or less desert plains like those frequented by the majority 

 of the existing members of that group. In contrast to this 

 paucity of hollow-horned ruminants is the abundance of 

 stags, which are especially common in the Norwich crag, 

 and for the most part belong to types unlike any now 

 existing, although Falconer's deer (C falconeri) was near 

 akin to the fallow deer. Among the most peculiar is a 

 species named C. verticornis, characterized by its short and 

 thick antlers, in which the cylindrical brow-tine curves 

 downwards over the forehead, while above it are two oval 

 tines, and superiorly the beam becomes flattened and 

 expanded into a crown of two points. The pigs were 

 represented by two extinct species, one of which was nearly 

 allied to, if not identical with, the gigantic Sus enjmanthius 

 from the Pliocene deposits of Attica ; while the smaller 

 one has been identified with another continental species 

 known as S. pnlceocJuems. 



Among the odd-toed imgulates, true horses seem very 

 rare, although Steno's horse, alluded to above as 

 characteristic of the forest-bed, has been recorded from 

 the Norwich crag. Three-toed horses of the genus 

 Hipparion were, however, common in the red crag ; their 

 upper molar teeth, as shown in the accompanying figure, 

 being always distinguishable at a 

 glance by the isolation of the antero- 

 internal from the enamel-folds of the 

 centre of the crown. The red crag 

 rhinoceroses are quite distinct from 

 those of the overlying beds, one 

 being identical with the hornless 

 Rhinoceros incisivus of the continental 

 Pliocene, while it is possible that a 

 second may be the same as a two- 



FiG. 3. — Left upper 

 molar tooth of Three- 

 toed Horse {Hipparion ). 



form [R. schleieniiacheri), 

 is apparently nearly allied 



living Sumatran species, 

 forms, large tusks in the 

 of a tapir in the red crag 



horned 



which 



to the 

 having, like the hornless 

 lower jaw. The occurrence 



assists in explaining the present anomalous distribution 

 of these animals ; one species of which is Malayan, while 

 all the rest are South American. Although the straight- 

 tusked elephant occurs in the Norwich crag, while the 

 southern elephant dates from the subjacent red crag, the 

 commonest proboscideans of the period under considera- 

 tion were mastodons, which, it is scarcely necessary to 

 mention, difi'er from elephants in the much lower crowns 

 of their molar teeth, which are surmounted by low 

 tubercles, frequently arranged in a small number of trans- 

 verse ridges, separated from one another by more or less 

 completely open valleys, this type of tooth being much 

 more generalized than that of the elephants. In one of 

 the crag mastodons {M. arvernensis) the tubercles of the 

 molars were arranged alternately and the lower jaw was 

 short and devoid of tusks ; in a second [M. hngirostris) the 

 same tubercles were arranged in transverse ridges, with 

 their worn summits showing a trefoil pattern like those of 

 the hippopotamus, the lower jaw being at the same time 

 greatly produced and armed with a large pair of tusks ; 



while in the third (M. borsoni) the ridges in most of 

 the teeth were three, instead of four in number, and 

 retained much less distinct evidence of their constituent 

 tubercles. 



The rodents need not detain us long, but the giant 

 beaver of the forest-bed was sparingly represented in the 

 Norwich crag, while a smaller member of the same genus 

 (Troijontherium minus) is found in the subjacent beds ; the 

 only other named rodent being the extinct vole referred to 

 above, which ranges downwards from the forest-bed to the 

 Norwich crag. 



The whales and dolphins of the crag are so interesting 

 that they would aiford ample material for an article by 

 themselves, and can, therefore, receive but scant notice in 

 the limits of space available. Among the whalebone 

 group there appear to have been no less than four species 

 of right whales, one of which {B. afjinis) resembled the 

 Greenland whale, while a second {B. primi<jenia)\y?ia more 

 nearly allied to the southern right whale, and a third 

 (B. halanopsis) was characterized by its small dimensions. 

 Humpbacks (Meffiiptera) were likewise well represented, as 

 were also the finners {Balanoptera) ; while an extinct 

 genus (Cetotherium) allied to the last contains several 

 species from the crag. It may be mentioned here that all 

 these whales are represented by the shell-like tympanic 

 bones of the inner ear, which differ remarkably in form in 

 the various genera, and thus form unerring guides both 

 for generic and specific determination. Another type of 

 these bones, remarkable for its egg-like form, serves to 

 differentiate yet another extinct genus (Herpetocetics) of 

 whalebone whales. Turning to the toothed whales, a 

 remarkable feature in the red crag is the number of teeth 

 indicating the occurrence of large forms more or less 

 closely allied to the sperm-whale, but mostly distinguished 

 by the presence of small caps of enamel. There were 

 likewise smaller forms, one of which has long been known 

 under the name of PJii/sodon, although it was only recently 

 that the writer was able to determine from the evidence 

 of a Patagonian specimen that it differed from the sperm- 

 whale in having teeth in the upper as well as in the lower 

 jaw, and thus indicates a distinct and more primitive 

 family connecting the sperm-whale with the dolphins. 

 That a bottle-nosed whale nearly allied to the existing 

 Ilyperoodon rostrafus inhabited British water during the 

 red crag period is proved by an ear-bone in the Ipswich 

 Museum ; and the number of beaked whales living at the 

 same time must have been extraordinarily great, from the 

 profusion in which their dense bony beaks occur in these 

 deposits. Most of them belong to the same genus 

 (Meso]iI.o(lun) as that rare visitor to the English shores, 

 Sowerby's whale ; although a few pertain to an extinct 

 genus {Chone^iphim) characterized by the presence of an 

 unossified tubular perforation running through the centre 

 of the beak. A species of the extinct shark-toothed dol- 

 phins {.Squalodon), together with a killer (Orca), black-fish 

 (G-loliicephalus), dolphin {Delphinus), and bottle-nosed 

 dolphin (Tursiops), completes the list of crag cetaceans. 

 It may be added that the sirenians, that is to say the 

 order to which belong the living manati and dugong, are 

 represented by a skull of the extinct genus Halitherium 

 from the red crag, but it is quite possible that this specimen 

 may have been washed out of Miocene beds. 



Although the fauna of the crag would have appeared 

 strange and foreign even to an inhabitant of Britain during 

 the early historic period, when the wolf, bear, aurochs, 

 and beaver still lingered in our islands, could a cave-man 

 have seen Britain as it existed during the period of the 

 crags, he would not have found the fauna very different 

 to the one with which he was acquainted, mastodons 



