BODENTIA. 49 



EODENTIA. 



Genus SCIURUS, Linnseus. 



SciUKUS VULGARIS? LINN^US. 



(^Squirrel.) 

 (Vert. Forest Bed, p. 92, Plate XIV., Kio. 12.) 



The evidence for the occurrence of the squirrel in the Foreat- 

 bed rests partly on the gnawed fir-cones which are frequently 

 found in this bed, and partly on the humerus of S. vulgaris 

 found at Ostend, near Bacton, probably in the Forest-bed. 



Genus CASTOR, Linnaeus. 



Castor fiber, linnmus. 



(= Castor EuROP.ffius, owen.) 



{Beaver^ 



Plate V., Fig. 16a, b. 



(Also Vert. Forest Bed, Plate XII.) 



The remains of Beavers were said by Sir R. Owen (Brit. 

 Foss. Mamm., p. 190, 1846) to have been found in the Norfolk 

 Forest-bed and also in the Norwich (Fluvio-marine) Crag of 

 Norfolk. The occurrence in the Forest-bed has been confirmed 

 by the finding of additional examples (Mem. Geol. Surv. Vert. 

 Forest Bed, p. 78, 1882). Two specimens were alluded to by 

 Sir R. Owen as coming from the Norwich Crag, one of these, 

 a femur from Thorpe, is in the British Museum, and is now, no 

 doubt correctlj'^, named Trugontherium (Cat. Foss. Mamm. Brit. 

 Mus., Part i., p. 217, No. 40,979, 1885). 



The second specimen (Plate V., fig. 18a, b, c) is thus referred 

 to (loc. cit., p. 192) : " A portion of an incisor of the under jaw 

 of a Beaver, now in the Museum of the Geological Society of 

 London, was found by the President, H. Warburton, Esq., 

 M.P., in the fluvio-marine Crag at Sizewell Gap, near South- 

 wold," in Suffolk. This specimen, I find, has the enamel rounded 

 and rough, not flattened and smooth as in Castor fiber. I 

 should therefore refer it rather to Trogontherium than to Castor, 

 and possibly it may belong to the small species which I have 

 described below as T. minus. 



Other notices of the occurrence of the common Beaver in the 

 Crag are apparently based on the above specimens. 



o 63855. jj 



