354 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [April 8, 



Felixstow, which Professor Owen (in the reference to the figure) de- 

 scribes as the "base of the antler of the Alec/aceros Hibernicus ;'' 

 inferred to occur in a formation where the majority of the mam- 

 malian species are regarded as jMiocene. Any determination emana- 

 ting from so distinguished a palcseontologist as Professor Owen must 

 be entertained with the respect which his great authority carries with 

 it. But the specimen in question, although (hke most of the fossils of 

 the "Red Crag") highly impregnated with iron, and of corresponding 

 gravity, is encrusted with fresh patches o( Lepralia Peachii. Prof. 

 Busk, to whom I am indebted for this identitication, 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 marhie 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 opacpie. Instead, therefore, of having been found in 

 a Crag-pit (the statement under which the specimen came before 

 Professor Owen), it woidd 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 impregnated 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 HarAvich. A large 

 number of molars of Elephas (Loxod.) meridionalis, presenting 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 re- 

 markable, considei'in"- the numerous descrintions of the coast-section 

 which have been made by different English, geologists, that the par- 

 ticular 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 

 sjjelceus of the Glacial fauna: and the pal^ontological evidence would 

 require to be very conclusive before the range of this species could 

 be extended so as to include the Pliocenes of the Subapennine 

 period. 



x\s 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 Ncwbourn, which Professor Owen 

 guardedly describes as " somewhat smaller than the corresponding 

 tooth of the Ui'sus spelceiis,'' would correspond in size with that of the 

 Pliocene Ursiis Arvernensis, found abundantly in Italy and Auvcrgne. 

 Professor Owen admits that the carnassial teeth specimens, from 

 Ncwbourn and Woodridge, of his Fclis joardoides, do not differ in size 

 from the Pliocene Felis pardiaensis of Croizet and Jobert, found in 

 Auvergne, and it remains to be shown that the former is specifically 



