E. T. Newton — Spermophilus beneath Boulder-Clay. 51 



greater variety of and better preserved Mammalian remains, con- 

 sisting of the following species : — 



Elephas primigenius. 

 Rhinoceros tichorhinus. 

 Cervus elaphus. 

 , , capreolus. 



Eqiius fossilis. 

 Bos primigenius. 

 Sus scrofa. 



The Hippopotamus has been found at Wytham on the opposite 

 side of the Thames, and the Eeindeer at other places in the Oxford 

 district, but their remains are extremely scarce. 



II. — On the Occukrenoe of Spermophilus beneath the Glacial 



TiLi, OF Norfolk. 



By E. T. Xewton, F.G.S. ; 



of the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street. 



(PLATE II.) 



THE remains of the genus Spermopluliis have been so rarely found 

 in Britain that an account of another example could not but 

 be of interest to geologists ; but the specimen described below is 

 especially notewoi'thy as it has been obtained from a deposit only 

 recently discovered, and from which no vertebrate remains have as 

 yet been recorded. The deposit referred to is the " Arctic Fresh- 

 water Bed," discovered near Mundesley, by Mr. Alfred Nathorst 

 {vide Journ. of Botany, vol. iii. 1873, p. 225), and investigated by 

 my colleague, Mr. Clement Eeid, during the survey of the Norfolk 

 coast (Geol. Mag. for Dec. 1880). This deposit is believed to be 

 the first definite indication of the arctic climate, which gradually 

 increasing reached its climax in the Glacial period ; it immediately 

 underlies the Till, and is regarded by Mr. Reid as the earliest bed of 

 the Glacial or Pleistocene epoch ; it has yielded to my colleague's 

 careful and laborious investigation a large number of arctic plants, 

 and it was while searching for these that he came upon some frag- 

 ments of bone, Ijang only a few inches below the superincumbent 

 40 feet of glacial deposits. Although these fragments were very un- 

 promising, yet, as they were the first that had been met with in the 

 bed, he carefully removed and washed as much of the surrounding 

 matrix as seemed likely to contain any part of the specimen. By 

 this means a number of pieces of bone were obtained, most of which 

 were so small and broken as to be indeterminable, but among them 

 were eight grinding teeth, which undoubtedly belong to the genus 

 Spermophilus, and some bones of the feet which had not been injured. 

 The only instances recorded of the occurrence of the Spermophilus 

 in this country are those mentioned by Dr. Falconer (Pal. Memoirs, 

 vol. ii. p. 452), and by Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins (Mon. Pal. Soc, 

 1864, p. 37). The two specimens described by Dr. Falconer as 

 Spermophilus erythrogenoides were from the Mendip caves, and the 

 third, which was figured but not named, was from the "Pleistocene 

 clay at Fisherton, Salisbury." Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins alludes to 

 another specimen in the Taunton Museum as being most closely 

 allied to the Sp. citillus, and mentions several examples of the genus 



