28 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. n. 



The Lower Eocene Birds. 



The lower Eocene birds, like the placental mammals 

 identified by Professors Owen 1 and Milne Ed wards, 2 belong- 

 to extinct genera. In Britain the rivers were haunted 

 by large goose-like birds (Odontopteryx) with the beak 

 armed with curious tooth-like processes, by herons, and 

 by kingfishers (Haley ornis) . There were flights of gulls 

 on the sea, and on the land were to be seen vultures 

 (Lithornis) and a great bird (Dasornis) resembling in 

 the size of its head the moa of New Zealand. In France 

 the Gastornis, of the size of an ostrich, 3 " but more robust 

 and with affinities to wading and aquatic birds," inhabited 

 the banks of the rivers. 



The Mid Eocene Flora. 



The mid Eocene land in Britain was covered with a 

 rich and luxuriant vegetation 4 like that of the tropics, 

 in which evergreen forest trees abound. The leaf beds 

 of Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight, and of Bourne- 

 mouth in Hampshire, enable us to form a definite idea of 

 the forests (Fig. 4) which extended from the margin of 

 the Nummulitic sea far away inland, clothing hill and 

 valley with a dense mantle of green. Here cypresses, 

 yews, and pines raised aloft their dark-green foliage; 

 there the screw-pine (Pandanus), fan-palms, and feather- 



1 Owen, Trans. Zool. Soc., vii. p. 146. Palaeontology, p. 291. Quart. 

 Geol Journ. Lond., xxix. p. 511. 



2 Milne Edwards, Recherches sur les Oiseaux Fossiles, 4to. 



3 Owen, Palaeontology, p. 291. 



4 J. S. Gardner. " Tropical Forests of Hampshire," Nature, xv. pp. 

 229, 258, 279. Alum Bay: De La Harpe. Geology of Isle of Wight. 

 Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, pp. 41, 109. 



