A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



records the discovery of the skull of a brown bear {Ursus arctus) in 1876, at 

 Bootle, during the excavation of the Alexandra Dock ; and likewise states that 

 a skull and other bones of the same species have been found in the Bewsey 

 Valley, near Warrington. With regard to the Bootle specimen, it has been 

 suggested from its battered appearance, that it may have remained for some 

 time on the surface of the ground before being embedded in the clay, or may 

 have been washed out of an earlier deposit and re-buried. A few antlers and 

 bones of the red deer, together with bones of the horse and undetermined 

 cetaceans, are likewise recorded by Mr. Morton from Bootle ; and the same 

 writer states that a horn-core of the aurochs has been obtained from this 

 neighbourhood. The latter specimen was exhibited to the Zoological Society 

 by Mr. J. G. Millais in April, 1905. Recently Prof. W. B. Dawkins 

 {Mem. Manchester Lit. Soc. 1904) has described remains of the straight-tusked 

 elephant [Elephas antiquus) from Blackpool. 



From Prehistoric and Pleistocene deposits to the Keuper, or upper 

 division of the Trias, is a long leap, but intermediate formations are lacking 

 in the county. As regards the Keuper and the other divisions of the Trias, 

 vertebrate fossils are represented solely by footprints of the primeval salamander 

 known as Chirosaurus (otherwise Chirotherium) and perhaps also of the 

 reptile Rhynchosaurus of the Trias of Shropshire. The great majority of 

 these footprints are met with in one particular horizon at Storeton and other 

 localities in the Wirral peninsula on the Cheshire side of the river, but, 

 according to Mr. Morton,^ specimens of both types were discovered many 

 years ago by Mr. A. Higginson in a quarry, long since buried, where now 

 stands Rathbone Street, at the corner of Washington Street, in the city of 

 Liverpool itself A report on these tracks has been recently drawn up by 

 Mr. H. C. Beasley,' who has also figured' the type specimen of C. herculis 

 from Cheshire. 



The next and only other formation from which vertebrate fossils appear 

 to have been recorded within the limits of the county is the Carboniferous, 

 which has yielded evidence of two kinds of labyrinthodont amphibians, and 

 also a considerable number of fish-remains from all the three divisions of the 

 Coal Measures. Information with regard to these fish-remains from the 

 neighbourhood of Prescot and St. Helens will be found in Mr. Morton's 

 book* and likewise in Dr. A. Smith Woodward's invaluable Catalogue of 

 Fossil Fishes in the British Museum. Of the Carboniferous fishes of the Little- 

 borough district Mr. E. D. Wellburn ' has drawn up a careful list. All the 

 specimens from the latter district, it may be mentioned, are from the Lower 

 Coal Measures. Finally, Mr. H. Bolton," in 1875, published a synopsis of 

 all the known fish-remains from the county, which embraced thirty-seven 

 species, arranged in twenty-three genera, to which he added another in the 

 foUowmg year. Since the present article was in type Mr. Bolton has published 

 {Trans. Manchester Geol. Soc. vol. xxviii. pts. 19 and 20) a new and revised 

 hst of the Carboniferous fish-fauna of the county. 



The most interesting Lancashire vertebrate fossil is undoubtedly 

 Hylonomus ivtldt, a representative of that group of small labyrinthodont or 



s ?roc"Li',lpoolG,ol. Soc. .lii. 8, (,90,). '^f Tcf""' ^" '^°' ^'9°4). 



» Pro., rorks. Geol. and Polp. Soc. xiii. 419-430. « Trans. Manchester Micr. Soc. ,89;, ,3 pp. 2 p],. 



32 



