Ancient Remains of Emys lutaria in Norfolk. 225 



Wretham Hall, near Thetford, I recognized, to iny surprise, some 

 specimens far more interesting than any I had hoped to meet 

 with ; and these, by that gentleman's kindness, I was enabled 

 to exhibit at the meeting of the Society above named. They 

 consist of a few bones of the limbs and a good part of the outer 

 skeleton of two individuals of the European freshwater Tortoise 

 Emys lutaria of Merrem [Testudo europaa of Bojanus, Cistudo 

 europaa of Dumeril and Bibron), a species whose existence at 

 any time in the British Islands had never before been suspected*. 

 They were found, as testified by a label attached to them in 

 Mr. Birch's handwriting, so long ago as June 1836, in a peat- 

 bog by the side of a spring-pit at East Wretham, about 7 feet 

 below the surface and beneath some fifteen hundred laminations 

 of a species of Hypnum^ which, I understand from Mr. Birch, 

 was pronounced by Sir William Hooker to be H. filicinum-\. 



I communicated these facts forthwith to Professor Owen and 

 Professor Bell, as being respectively the highest authorities on 

 fossil and recent British reptiles, and subsequently submitted 

 the remains to the first-named gentleman, who kindly deter- 

 mined the species for me, thereby confirming the view I had 

 taken of it. In these days the geographical range of this little 

 Tortoise is somewhat remarkable. 1 am not aware of any indi- 

 cations of its existence in Holland, Belgium, or Northern France. 

 In the North-west of Germany it is unknown ; but it occurs in 

 Baden, WiirtembergJ, Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and 

 Silesia, whence it seems to extend in a north-western direction 

 through Eastern Prussia, as far as Rostock. At the present 

 time, it is not recognized as an inhabitant of either Denmark 

 or Sweden ; but its remains have been found in both countries 

 under circumstances similar to those of the Norfolk ones I have 

 just recorded, as may be seen from the following abstract of the 

 statements of Professors Dalman, Nilsson, and Steenstrup. 



In the Transactions of the Stockholm Academy (K. Vetensk. 

 Acad. Handl. 1820, pp. 286-293, tabb. vi. and vii.) Professor 

 Dalman gives an account of some Tortoise-bones found in 

 digging the Gotha canal, near Norsholm, in the province of 

 CEstergothland. They seem to have been about 15 feet below 

 the surface, in peat-earth, over which a layer of gravel had been 



* I believe that as yet no trace of any of the Testudinata has been ob- 

 tained in England from a formation later than that of the London Clay — 

 certainly not from any post-Tertiary deposit. 



t Sir Charles Bunbury has been good enough to refer me to a commu- 

 nication of his in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 

 for 1856 (vol. xii. p. 365), in which he describes a similar layer of moss 

 found at West Wretham, and there identifies the species as H. fiuitans. 



X See G. V. Jager, in Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. 1861, xxxiv. p. 190. 



Ann. ^ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol x. 16 



