HIPPOPOTAMUS. 5 



and in 1885 Lake 1 described a peculiar mandible which lie considered to be that of 

 a female — an opinion in which he was supported by Lydekker. 



During the past thirty years no papers of a general character bearing on the 

 Hippopotamidas have been published in English, but the occurrence of the hippo- 

 potamus has been recorded from a number of additional British localities, e. g. 

 by Bemrose and Deeley 2 (1896), from Derby ; by Hinton 3 (1889), from Tlford ; by 

 Dawson and Woodward 4 (1913), from Piltdown. 



Several supposed new species were described by PomeP from Algiers in 1896. 

 Stehlin 6 (1899, and again in 1908) has briefly discussed the possible origin of the 

 Hippopotamidas. 



II. DISTRIBUTION OF THE HIPPOPOTAMUS IN BRITAIN. 



It was apparently not till the very end of the Pliocene period that the 

 hippopotamus reached Britain, the earliest British remains being those from the 

 Norfolk Forest Bed of Bacton, Happisburgh and Cromer. These remains, which 

 are mainly isolated teeth but include one very fine mandibular ramus, were first 

 recorded by S. Woodward 7 in 1833, and were described by Owen 8 (1846) and 

 afterwards alluded to by Newton" (1882). 



During Pleistocene times the hippopotamus was very widely distributed in 

 England, ranging as far west as Torquay and Plymouth and as far north as 

 Overton, Yorkshire. The majority of the records are, however, from the 

 Thames valley and eastern counties of England. That the hippopotamus 

 extended into Wales is shown by the occurrence of teeth in the caves of 

 Ravenscliff, (lower, 10 and Caldy Tsland in 'South Wales, and of Cefn 11 near St. 

 Asaph in North Wales. No suggestion has ever been made that the hippo- 

 potamus reached Scotland, and though a tooth is stated to have been found in 

 Antrim it is probable that this was a mistaken record. 12 



1 ' Geol. Mag.' [3], ii, p. 318. 2 < Q uar t. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' Hi, p. 497. 



3 ' Proc. Geol. Assoc," xvi, p. 277. t ' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' lxix, p. 142. 



■"' 'Carte Geologique d'Algerie, Paleont. Monog.' ; according to Boule (' Grottes de Grimaldi,' i, 

 fasc. iii, p. 195) these are varieties of H. amphibius. 



6 ' Abhandl. Schweiz. Palseont, Ges..' xxvi (1899), p. 433, and xxxv (1908), p. 751. 



7 ' Geol. of Norfolk,' p. 4(5. s ' Brit. Foss. Mammals,' p. 399. 



;| ' Vertebrata of Forest Bed Series of Norfolk and Suffolk ' (Mem. Geol. Surv.), p. 42. 



i» 'Quart, Journ. Geol. Soc.,' xvi (1860), p. 490. 



'■' H. Falconer, ' Palseont, Mem.,' i, p 541. 



12 Adams ('Journ. Roy. Geol. Soc. Ireland,' iv, 1877, p. 247) refers to this as follows: "The 

 presence of the hippopotamus in Ireland rests on a canine tooth said to have been discovered in the 

 county of Antrim, a drawing of which tooth is preserved in the office of the Geological Survey of 

 Ireland." 



