242 W. B. DAWKrS"S ox a skull of OYIBOS 3I0SCHATUS. 



25. Oil a Skull of Otibos iioscHATrs from the SEA-BoiTOii. By 

 W. BoTJ) Dawkixs, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., P.G.>S.,, Professor of 

 Geology and Palgeontology in the Yictoria University. (Bead 

 February 25, 1885.) 



In a discussion on my essay " On the alleged Existence of Ovibos 

 moscliatas in the Porest-bed, and its Range in Space and Time " *, 

 doubts were thrown on the specimen on which the paper was 

 founded as having really been derived from the Porest-bed. On the 

 one hand it was argued by Prof. Prestwich that it was possibly 

 derived from some newer deposit, and on the other by ^r. Evans 

 that it was a dredged specimen. Since the publication of the paper 

 Mr. Clement Peid has carefully re-examined the specimen, and 

 agrees with me in concluding from the matrix that it is "a genuine 

 Porest-bed specimen," and that it has not been dredged t. The 

 interest attaching to the discovery of so arctic a species in the 

 Forest-bed has led me to search for further evidence, and the search 

 has resulted in the discovery of another skull, which is the proxi- 

 mate cause of this communication. 



Shortly after the publication of my essay on Ovibos moschatus in 

 the Journal of the Society, Professor Newton told me of the existence 

 of an undescribed specimen of Ovibos in the University Museum of 

 Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge. Mr. J. W. Clarke 

 has been kind enough to send it to me with the accompanjdng note. 

 " My assistant saw it hanging up outside a general store and curi- 

 osity shop in Barnwell, and gave 2s. 6d. for it. The proprietor of 

 the establishment could give no account of it." An examination of 

 it, however, leaves no doubt on my mind as to its derivation. It is 

 highly impregnated with peroxide of iron, and in one spot between 

 the horn-cores showed traces of the red sand matrix of the Porest- 

 bed. It is stained deep red, as is generally the case with speci- 

 mens which have been washed out of the Porest-bed and exposed 

 for some time to the sea-water, and it had evidently been at the 

 bottom of the sea for some time, since it is incrusted in places with 

 Polyzoa. The fact, moreover, that these occur on the fractured sur- 

 faces proves that the specimen was lying at the bottom of the sea 

 as a fragment. Its sharp angles forbid the supposition that it has 

 been exposed to the dash of the sea on the shingle. In a word, it 

 possesses all the characters of specimens obtained by the fishermen 

 from the Xorth Sea off the coast of ]^orfolk and Suffolk, and which 

 have been washed out of the Porest-bed at a time when the cliffs now 

 so rapidly retreating were not far from the line of the Dogger Bank. 

 Between the Dogger Bank and the present cliffs of East Angha 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Nov. 1883, vol. xxxix. p. 581. 



t " Through the kindness of Mr. Buxton, I have had an opportunity of ex- 

 amining the skull, and feel no doubt that it is a genuine Forest-bed specimen. 

 It is certainly not dredged ; for the angles are unworn, there are no marine 

 organisms on it, and the loose sand inside is not sea-sand. Under the micro- 

 scope the sandy matrix is exactly like the coarse quartz-sand of the Forest-bed, 

 and not like the sand of the glacial deposits or shore. A quartzite pebble im- 

 pacted in a cavity also agrees with the peculiar pebbles found in the Forest- 

 bed." Trans, of the Koi'folk and Suffolk Naturalists' Society, iii. p, 632. 



