﻿4 PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



Birds,' and was not included by Dawkins in his list 1 of preglacial mammals, but part 

 of a right mandibular ramus found in the Upper Freshwater Bed at West Runton 

 was described by Newton. 2 



Records of the remains of the marten in British Pleistocene deposits are scanty. 

 Dawkins and Sanford 3 mentioned a skull and lower jaw imbedded in breccia in the 

 Williams collection from Bleadon. Falconer 4 ' detected marten remains which he 

 attributed with hesitation to Mustela foina in three of the Gower caves, viz. Long 

 Hole, Ravenscliff, and Spritsail Tor. Adams 5 recorded it from Ballynamintra, 

 co. Waterford. 



Scharff 6 mentioned that while abundant remains of martens were found in the 

 Newliall and Barntick caves, co. Clare, these were all in the upper strata, and 

 hence, it may be concluded, were probably not Pleistocene. A (probably) 

 Prehistoric skull from Edenvale, co. Clare, and a mandibular ramus from the 

 Langwith cave are figured on PL II, figs. 4, 5, of the present memoir. Cuvier 7 

 and Kriiger 8 Lave alluded to the occurrence of bones of marten at GailenreutL. 



Mustela robusta, the Giant Polecat. 



This name was applied by Newton 9 to the remains of a large Musteline found 

 in England, as yet only in the Ightham fissure. In the first instance only a left 

 humerus, a right ulna and certain bones of the extremities were found, and as a 

 result of a careful comparison with the corresponding bones of the marten and pole- 

 cat, Newton arrived at the conclusion that they were distinct. A further series of 

 limb-bones with part of a skull and mandible was described and. figured by the 

 same author 10 in 1899, and their affinities to the polecat rather than to the marten 

 were pointed out. 



Though the Ightham specimens w^ere the first remains of the giant polecat 

 which had been found in Britain, such had long been known on the Continent. 

 Cornalia 11 (1870) had figured large fossil skulls of polecat from Lombardy. 

 Woldrich 12 (1881 — 1883), others from Zuzlawitz, near Winterberg, in Bohemia, 



1 'Quart. Joum. Geo! Soc.,' xxv (1869), p. 210. 



2 'Mem. G-eol. Surv.,' "Vert, of Forest Bed," p. 25. 



3 " British Pleistocene Mammalia : Felidse," ' Pal. Soc' (1866), p. xxii. 



I ' Pal. Mem.,' ii, 1868, p. 525. 5 ' Trans. Boy. Dublin Soc.,' (2), i, 1881, p. 208. 

 c ' Trans. Eoy. Irish Acad.,' xxxiii (1906), B, pt. 1, p. 41. 



- ' Oss. Foss.,' ed. 2 (1823), iv, p. 467. 8 ' Geschichte der Urwelt,' ii, p. 851. 



II ' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' 1 (1894), p. 200. 10 Ibid., Iv (1899), p. 425. 

 11 " Mon. Mamm. foss. de Lombardie," ' Pal. Lomb.,' ii (1870), p. 33, pi. xi. 



>2 ' Sitzb. k. Akad. Wiss. Wien,' lxxxii, pt. 1 (1880), pi. ii, figs. 24—26, and ibid, lxxxviii, pt. 1 

 (1883), pi. ii, figs. 1, 2. 



