58 BKITISII AND EUKOPEAN FOSSIL MASTODONS. 



Any determination emanating from so distinguished a palae- 

 ontologist as Professor Owen must be entertained with the 

 respect which his great authority carries with it. But the 

 specimen in question, although (like most of the fossils of the 

 ' Red Crag ') highly impregnated with iron, and of corres- 

 ponding gravity, is encrusted with fresh patches of Lepralia 

 Peachii. Prof. Busk, to whom I am indebted for this identi- 

 fication, after a careful examination of the original, informs 

 me that the pearly appearance and transparency of the walls 

 of the cells indicate the modern origin of this marine Bryozoon. 

 Other species of the same genus are found in abundance upon 

 the fossil shells of the Red Crag, but they are invariably 

 more or less tinged with an ochreous colour, and the walls of 

 the cells are opaque. Instead, therefore, of having been 

 found in a Crag pit (the statement under which the specimen 

 came before Professor Owen), it would seem most probable 

 that it was dredged out of the present sea, from some locality 

 off the coasts of Suffolk or Essex. Teeth and bones of 

 Elephants and of other herbivorous mammalia, highly im- 

 pregnated with iron, and encrusted with marine Bryozoa, are 

 brought up by the dredge, or found upon the beach, at 

 intervals all along the coast from Mundesley to Harwich. A 

 large number of molars of Elephas (Loxod.) meridionalis, pre- 

 senting a highly vitreous polish, heavy, and dark-coloured, 

 exist in Mr. Fitch's collection at Norwich ; and analogous 

 remains are to be met with in various collections in Suffolk 

 and Essex ; yet it is not a little remarkable, considering the 

 numerous descriptions of the coast section which have been 

 made by different English geologists, that the particular 

 beds from which these remains have been derived have not 

 yet been determined with precision. No authentic case has 

 as yet been made out of remains of the Irish Elk in strata of 

 an older date than the period of the Mammoth, Siberian 

 Rhinoceros, and Ursus Speloeus of the Glacial fauna ; and the 

 palseontological evidence would require to be very conclusive 

 before the range of this species could be extended so as to 

 include the Pliocenes of the Sub-Apennine period. 



As regards the Carnivora of the ' Red Crag ' enumerated 

 by Prof. Owen, the evidence, so far as it has been published, 

 is of a very limited nature, being confined to detached teeth, 

 and is adequate for little more than the identification of the 

 respective genera. No Miocene species of Ursus has yet been 

 met with in Europe. The tooth from a Red Crag pit at 

 Newbourn, which Professor Owen guardedly describes as 

 ' somewhat smaller than the corresponding tooth of the 

 Ursus speloeus,' would correspond in size with that of the 

 Pliocene Ursus Arvemensis, found abundantly in Italy and 



