322 EH. T. Newton—Trogonthervwm from Copford, Essex. 
VII.—ZroGonTHERIUM FROM THE PLEISTOCENE OF CoprorD, Essex. 
By EH. T. NEwtTon, F.R.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S. 
N the year 1852 John Brown, of Stanway, published a paper on 
the Copford deposits (Q.J.G.8., vol. viii, p. 184), and in this 
includes a letter from George R. Waterhouse referring to two 
‘Beaver’ teeth and the metacarpal of a Bear. One of these teeth is 
described and figured, and is said to differ from the beaver in being 
larger and also in the direction of the enamel folds. This tooth is 
preserved in the British Museum of Natural History at South 
Kensington, and I have recently had the opportunity of examining 
it; but the second tooth I have been unable to discover, concerning 
which G. R. Waterhouse says it ‘‘scarcely differs from that of the 
European species ’’. 
Richard Lydekker ( Catalogue of Fossil Mammalia in British Museum, 
pt. i, 1885, p. 221, No. 27985) notices the figured specimen, repro- 
duces the woodcut, and says ‘‘it comes nearer to the molars of 
Trogontherium, but does not seem to agree exactly with any specimen 
available for comparison ”’. 
The deposits at Copford, as shown by John Brown, include 
a comparatively modern deposit, containing many land and freshwater 
shells, and an underlying blue clay from which remains of ‘‘ Elephant, 
Stag, Aurochs, Bear, Beaver’”’ were obtained, as well as some fresh- 
water species of Mollusca. Some geologists seem to have had grave 
doubts as to the true age of these Copford beds; but at the present 
time, although there may have been some unfortunate mixing of the 
shells from beds 2 and 4, there is little room for doubt as to the 
Pleistocene age of the mammalian remains above-mentioned, nor as 
to their having been found in the ‘‘ blue clay ’’ marked in the section 
as ‘‘ Brick Earth”’. | 
It was just fifty years after the publication of John Brown’s paper 
that the giant beaver, Zrogontherium, so commonly met with in the 
Plocene Forest Bed, was first recognized in the Pleistocene deposits 
of the Thames Valley (Gror. Maa., 1902, p. 385). Unfortunately 
when that paper was written I had not studied the Copford ‘ Beaver’, 
otherwise it might have been included as additional evidence of 
Trogontherium having survived in this country in Pleistocene times. 
The original figure does not give a good idea of this tooth on account 
of the direction in which it is viewed, and the careful drawing given 
on p. 323 may help toremedy this. The enamel of the posterior margin 
of the worn surface has been chipped away, but its position is indicated 
in this figure (@) by a dotted line; also the basal part has been 
somewhat broken since the original figure was made. This tooth is 
an upper premolar 4 of the left side, and agrees very closely with 
that of TZrogontherium Cuviert figured in the Geological Survey 
Memoir (Vertebrata of the Forest Bed Series, 1882, pl. xi, fig. 15, 
lowest tooth of the figure). I have no doubt as to its reference to 
Trogontherium, and it shows no differences by which it might be 
separated from 7. Cuvieri, in which the patterns of the grinding 
surface of the teeth vary greatly as they are worn down. The 
rapidity with which the lateral folds of enamel are worn away so as 
