QUADRUMANA. 3 



penned had been discovered in any of the marine strata of 

 the Eocene epoch in England. 



I have been so fortunate, in my researches on the Fossil 

 Mammalia of Great Britain, as to determine not only the 

 remains of extinct Pachydermal animals (Lophiodon and 

 Hyracotherium) in the Eocene beds called the London 

 Clay, but, likewise, of a Quadrumane, or Monkey, in a 

 sandy stratum of the same formation, the epoch of which 

 had been shown by Mr. Lyell, from the evidence of other 

 organic remains, to have had a temperature sufficiently 

 high for arboreal Mammalia of the four-handed order. 



The fossils manifesting the quadrumanous characters 

 were discovered, in 1839, by Mr. William Colchester, in a 

 bed of whitish sand beneath a stratum of tenacious blue 

 clay, situated by the side of the river Deben, about a mile 

 from Woodbridge, in the parish of Kingston, commonly 

 called Kyson, in Suffolk.* 



The first of these fossils submitted to my inspection, (fig. 

 1, m, 3,) was the fragment of the right side of the lower 

 jaw, including the anterior part of the base of the coronoid 

 process, and the last molar tooth entire in its socket. This 

 tooth is, fortunately, a very characteristic one ; and after a 

 comparison of it with the corresponding tubercular tooth in 

 the lower jaw of the Coati (Nasua), Racoon (Procyori), 

 Ratel, Opossum, Phalanger, and other small unguiculate 

 quadrupeds of a mixed or partially carnivorous diet, I pro- 

 ceeded to an examination of the Quadrumana, and found in 

 that order the desired correspondence. 



The extreme rarity of the fossil remains of such highly 

 organised animals in any part of the world, and the pre- 

 vious total absence of any in a land so far from the Equator 



* In August 1839, see Magazine of Natural History for September, 1839, p. 

 446. These rare fossils are now in the possession of Mr. Colchester. 



B 2 



