( 95 ) 



EDITORIAL GLEANINGS, 



With the object of clearing up certain doubtful points as to the relation 

 of Palaeolithic Man to the glacial epoch, a Committee, under the presidency 

 of Sir John Evans, was appointed at the Ipswich meeting of the British 

 Association in 1895. Its report, drawn up by the Secretary, Mr. Clement 

 Reid, was presented to the Liverpool Meeting of the British Association, 1896. 



Work was commenced at Hoxne. A pit was sunk to a depth of 20 feet, 

 and a boring continued 22 feet lower, when the glacial sand (underlying the 

 boulder clay) was reached. This represented a depth of about 51 feet from 

 the surface which existed before the brickyard was worked in which the 

 investigations were made. A chain of borings east and west of this trial pit 

 was also effected. 



Mr. T. V. Holmes, in summarising this report in the pages of the 

 'Essex Naturalist,' writes: — "The explorers think that long after the 

 disappearance of the ice which deposited the chalky boulder clay (the latest 

 glacial deposit of East Anglia) the land was somewhat higher than at 

 present, so that the silted-up channel could be excavated to a depth slightly 

 greater thau that of the present channel of the Waveney. Then gradual 

 subsidence turned this channel into a shallow fresh-water lake. After the 

 lake became silted up it was grown over by a temperate flora. Then lacustrine 

 conditions again prevailed, and a colder climate, resulting in the deposition 

 of bed C (black loam with leaves of arctic plants). Then followed the floods, 

 during which the palaeolithic beds B (gravel and carbonaceous loam) (no 

 implements at this spot) and A (brick-earth with fresh-water shells, wood, 

 and palaeolithic implements) were deposited. The palaeolithic deposits at 

 Hoxne are therefore, as Mr. Reid remarks, not only later than the boulder 

 clay of East Anglia, but are separated from it by two climatic waves, 

 with corresponding changes of the flora." 



At the January meeting of the Zoological Society of London, Mr. Sclater 

 exhibited a photograph of a young Anteater, Myrmecophaga jubata, two 

 days' old, born in the Zoological Garden of Herr Adolf Nill, at Stuttgart. 

 Mr. Sclater remarked that this was the first instance, so far as he knew, 

 of this animal having bred in captivity. 



At a meeting of the Linnean Society of London held Dec. 1 7th, Mr. J. E. 

 Harting exhibited a supposed hybrid between the Common Brown Hare, 



