CORYPHODON EOC^NUS. 305 



which it passes in a state of quiet lethargy, and seeks its 

 food only by night. With the exception of the Hog, it 

 seerns to be the most truly omnivorous of the tribe of 

 animals to which it belongs ; for scarcely anything comes 

 amiss to its ravenous appetite. Its most common food is 

 vegetable, and consists of wild fruits, buds, and shoots. 11 * 



The abundance and variety of the fossil remains of fruits, 

 most of them of a tropical character,^ which have been 

 obtained from the same deposits of eocene clay as that 

 which has yielded the subject of the present section, be- 

 speak the extent and nature of those dark and dense pri- 

 meval forests in which the Coryphodon obtained its sub- 

 sistence. In size, the ancient British Tapiroid quadruped 

 must have surpassed the largest Tapir of South America, 

 or Sumatra, by one-third. The unique fossil specimen 

 which has led to its determination, was dredged up from 

 the bottom of the sea, between St. Osyth and Harwich 

 on the Essex coast, and now forms part of the interesting 

 and instructive collection of my esteemed friend, John 

 Brown, Esq., of Stanway Green, near Colchester. The 

 specimen is petrified, and heavily impregnated with me- 

 tallic salts ; it presents the usual rich deep brown colour 

 of the fossil bones of the London clay : the pyritic matter 

 which sparkles in the cancelli of the bone, and which lines 

 the pulp-cavity of the broken molar tooth, leaves no room 

 for doubt as to the fossil having been originally imbedded 

 in that eocene tertiary formation of the Harwich coast. 



* ' Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society delineated,' 8vo. vol. i. 

 p. 202. 



t See Mr. Bowerbank's interesting work on the Fossil Fruits of the London 

 clay, 8vo. Van Voorst. 



