C2 



BKITISH AND EUROPEAN FOSSIL MASTODONS. 



neous admixture is inadmissible. Cetacean remains were 

 long ago described by Cuvier from tbe Crag of Antwerp. 1 

 Lyell found in the same formation numerous specimens of 

 bones said to be of Balcenoptera and Ziphius, which bore no 

 marks of rolling as if washed out of older beds ; and he 

 inferred that the animals to which they belonged once co- 

 existed in the same sea with the associated Crag Mollusca. 2 

 He considers the strata to be Older Pliocene, equivalents of 

 the Red Crag and Coralline Crag. 



Professor Owen, in his late memoir, enumerates some 

 additions to the Cetacean remains from the Eed Crag described 

 in the ' British Fossil Mammalia.' Among these are portions 

 of an upper jaw very closely resembling the Bioplodon Becanii 

 of Gervais (Ziphius of Cuvier), and 'water-worn teeth corres- 

 ponding in size and form ' with those of the Hoplocetus 

 crassidens, an obscure and as yet imperfectly determined form 

 provisionally so named by Gervais, 3 from the Miocene Faluns 

 of La Drome. Another supposed species of the genus, named 

 Hoplocetus curvidens by the same palaeontologist, is founded 

 upon specimens procured from the Pliocene sands of Mont- 

 pellier. The Crag ' Cetotolites ' (i.e. the same species) have 

 nowhere as yet been described as occurring in Eocene beds 

 in England ; and the whole bearing of the evidence would 

 seem to indicate that at least a considerable part, if not the 

 whole, of the ' Bed Crag ' Cetacea are of the same age as 

 the associated terrestrial Herbivora. 



[Since the preceding pages were in type, I have had an 

 opportunity of examining specimens in some of the principal 

 collections in Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, which throw light 

 upon some of the points discussed above. In the Town Hall 

 of Colchester there is a fine specimen, comprising both 

 maxillary bones of a young Elephas (Eueleph.) antiquus, and 

 presenting the last milk molar (right side) in place. The 

 matrix is very ferruginous, and the bones and tooth are of a 

 dark-chocolate colour, with a vitreous polish. It was dredged 

 up from off the 'West Bocks' on the Essex coast; and it 

 resembles in its mineral condition the large Cervine horn 

 reputed to be from a Crag pit at Felixstow, and referred by 

 Professor Owen to Megaceros (see above, p. 57). 



In the rich and valuable collection of Bed Crag fossils 

 belonging to William Whincopp, Esq., of Woodridge, there 



1 Oss. Foss. torn. v. p. 352. 



2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe, vol. viii. 

 p. 281 ; and Manual of Geology, 5th 

 edit. p. 174. 



s Paleont. Frang. torn. i. p. 161. Ger- 



vais throws out a suggestion, that his 

 Httplocetus may have a connexion with 

 the BalcBnodon of Professor Owen, but 

 does not enter into a detailed compari- 

 son. 



