Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 27.djvu/489

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12 species of terrestrial Mammalia

7 ,, Cetacea

2 „ Ziphioid Cetaceans probably derived from Upper Tertiaries.

2 " Fish

10 " Testacea

3 ,, Mammalia probably derived from Middle Tertiaries.

8 „ Fish

3 ,, Mammalia

4 „ Reptiles

20 „ Fish

24 „ Testacea probably derived from older Tertiaries.

5 ,, Crustacea

2 ,, Echinoderms

1 ,, Zoophytes

Of the origin of the fossils from the older Tertiaries (London Clay) there can be no doubt, as they are well-known species of that formation, and have the mineral condition proper to it. The number of Crustacea and of Fishes derived from that source could now be even largely increased.

With regard to the origin of the mammalian remains, Mr. Searles Wood expresses an opinion that the land-mammalia " are certainly intruders into the Crag, to whatever period they may be assigned." In his paper on the extraneous fossils of the Red Crag, he considers some of them to be of Middle-Tertiary age, but that the majority belong to the Upper Tertiaries, and are of older date than the Red Crag. He also suggests the questions whether the large fish-teeth from Suffolk may not be from beds of the same Miocene age as those of Malta ; and he raises the same question with regard to the remains of Hippotherium and Hyoenodon.

In 1840, in 1846, and lastly in 1856, Professor Owen * described various mammalian fossils of the Red Crag ; and he came to the conclusion " that the majority of them are identical or closely correspond with the Miocene forms of Mammalia, and especially with those from the Eppelsheim locality described by Professor Kaup. In Suffolk, as in Darmstadt, we find Mastodon longirostris (angustidens), Rhinoceros Schleiermacheri, Tapirus priscus, Sus paloeochoerus, and Cervus dicranocerus associated together in the same formation ; and with these Miocene forms of extinct Mammalia in the Red Crag we have likewise the Cetaceans, which most closely resemble the Miocene species of that order previously recognized in the Crag or Molasse of the Continent."

In 1857, Dr. Falconer published an important paper on the species of Mastodon and Elephant occurring in a fossil state in Great Britain. To this paper are appended some interesting remarks on other mammalian fossils of the crag f. He established the identity of the Crag-Mastodon with the M. arvernensis of Auvergne and Velay. With regard to the Crag-Rhinoceros, he considered that the teeth present no character, so far as they have been described, inconsistent with their being referred to the so-called R. megarhinus of the

  • Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. iv., 'British Fossil Mammalia,' and Quart.

Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xii. p. 217.

t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xiii. pp. 347-360.