Reviews—Prof. Boyd-Dawkins—Early Man in Britain. 373 
points out the retreat of apes owing to the lowering of the climate. 
He regards the evidence of Pliocene man in France and Italy as 
unsatisfactory ; and concludes that it is very improbable that he 
will ever be proved to have lived in this quarter of the world at 
that remote time, owing to the number of extinct species of mammals 
which characterize the Pliocene deposits. Further, he regards it 
as an open question whether man lived in early Pleistocene times, 
in which, however, he includes (very unfortunately, we think) the 
Forest Bed of Norfolk. 
The Forest Bed is so intimately connected with the Crag of 
Norfolk, that if the former be placed as Pleistocene, so also must the 
latter. The observations of all who have made a careful study of 
the Pre-glacial beds on the Cromer coast testify to this, and it is 
only necessary to refer to the works of Lyell, of Mr. John Gunn, 
Prof. Prestwich, and Mr. Clement Reid in support of the statement. 
Indeed the Westleton Beds which Prof. Dawkins places in the Newer 
Pliocene (p. 72) are described by Prof. Prestwich as above the 
Forest Bed. This is only another instance of the futility of attempt- 
ing classification on restricted paleontological evidence. Since the 
work was published three species of Carnivora new to the Forest 
Bed have been recorded.’ It is quite true that there may be no 
hard line of demarcation between the Pliocene and Glacial deposits, 
but there is a considerable change of conditions between them, and 
it seems decidedly most convenient to regard the Pleistocene period 
as commencing in Glacial times. 
Prof. Dawkins gives lists of Mammals showing those that survived 
from the Pliocene, and the living and extinct species of new comers. 
The lists of Mammals from the Pre-glacial Forest Bed of Norfolk 
being now in course of revision by Mr. E. T. Newton, we may pass 
over the subject, merely observing that Trogontherium, and Arvicola 
amphibia, noticed as ‘‘ new comers,” have been found in the Norwich 
Crag. 
Ju what the author terms the “Middle Pleistocene” the arctic 
mammalia begin to appear—in this division he groups the beds at 
Ilford, Grays Thurrock, Erith, and Crayford. Referring to the 
discoveries of flint-flakes at the last-named locality, which he con- 
siders as the earliest evidence of man in this country, he observes 
that the strata ‘‘are very interesting from the possibility that they 
may belong to a time before the glacial climate had set in.” And 
he mentions a superficial deposit at Ilford that “ bears unmistak- 
able signs of having been accumulated by the action of ice.” This 
stratum, however (as he points out), was termed loess by Professor 
Prestwich, and “trail” by Mr. O. Fisher, and is a deposit very 
distinct from the Chalky Boulder-clay, which caps the heights on the 
north of the Thames Valley. ‘The physical structure of the Thames 
Valley indicates that the deposits in it may be newer than the 
Chalky Boulder-clay ; but there is no positive evidence. 
The clearest cases of man’s arrival before the close of the Glacial 
period are those brought forward by Mr. Skertchly ; to these Prof. 
1K. T. Newton, Grou. Mac. Dec. II. Vol. VII. p. 155. 
