426 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 
possession of the Museum of Practical Geology in London, and 
appears to be the largest fossil cetacean vertebra known. 
Fortunately there is no doubt as to its origin, for it was found 
by Mr. Barker in the “Forest-bed” on the foreshore near Cromer, 
and was dug out under bis own supervision. The processes of this 
vertebra are wanting, but the centrum is in an unusually good 
state of preservation ; and the distinct articulations for chevron 
bones show unmistakably that it is from the anterior caudal region. 
The width of the centrum across the front face is nearly 16 inches, 
its length about 10^- inches, and its height nearly 14 inches. The 
proportion of length to breadth corresponds most nearly with 
a front caudal vertebra of the Right Whale, Balcena, and the 
specimen is therefore referred to that genus. I have not seen 
a recent skeleton of Balcena with vertebral as large as this fossil ; 
but, by the courtesy of Sir William Flower, I have been able to 
examine an unmounted skeleton of a Balcenoptera sibbaldi in the 
British Museum, which is said to have been SO feet long when 
alive ; and what seems to be a corresponding vertebra of this 
colossal creature measures as much as 16£ inches across the face 
of the centrum. This, however, gives no clue to the size of the 
“Forest-bed” Balcena, as the proportions of the two genera are 
very different. At the present time the following cetacea are 
known to occur in the “Forest-bed” — Balcena biscayensis, Gray; 
Balcenoptera, sp. ; Phy refer macrocephalus, Linn. ; Orca gladiator, 
Gray; Pseudorca crassidensl Owen; Monodon monoceros, Linn.; 
Delphinopterus leucae, Pallas ; Delphinus clelphis, Linn. ; Tursiops 
tursio l Bonnaterre ; Phoccena communis, Lesson ; Ziphoids 1 
E. T. Newton. 
Naias marina. Some unknown Fossil Seeds from the Cromer 
Forest-bed, received from Mr. Clement Reid, have just been identified 
by Professor A. G. Nathorst, as belonging to Naias marina, a plant 
now only living at one locality in Britain — in Hickling Broad, 
Norfolk. Dr. Gunnar Andersson, who first recognised the species 
in a fossil state, points out that, like Trapa natans, it was formerly 
more plentiful, for lie has found the sub-fossil seeds in peat-mosses 
in various parts of Southern Sweden ; and has also identified 
specimens in collections from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and 
Switzerland. — ‘Natural Science,’ June, 1892, p. 254. 
