(* Mr. King discovered in 1863, in the forest bed, several
rhizomes of the large British fern Osmunda regalis, of such
dimensions as they are known to attain in marshy places.
They are distinguishable from those of other British ferns
by the peculiar arrangement of the vessels, as seen under
the microscope in a cross section.)
When we consider the familiar aspect of the flora, the accompanying mammalia are certainly most extraordinary. There are no less than three elephants, a rhinoceros and hippopotamus, a large extinct beaver, and several large estuarine and marine mammalia, such as the walrus, the narwhal, and the whale.
The following is a list of some of the species of which the bones have been collected by Messrs. Gunn and King.
Those marked (asterisk) have been recorded by Professor Owen in his British Fossil Mammalia. Those marked (dagger) have been recognised by the same authority in the cabinets of Messrs. Gunn and King, or in the Norwich Museum; the other three are given on the authority of Dr. Falconer.
MAMMALIA OF THE FOREST AND LIGNITE BEDS BELOW THE GLACIAL DRIFT OF THE NORFOLK CLIFFS.
Elephas meridionalis.
(asterisk) Elephas primigenius.
Elephas antiquus.
Rhinoceros etruscus.
(asterisk) Hippopotamus (major?).
(asterisk) Sus scrofa.
(asterisk) Equus (fossilis?).
(asterisk) Ursus (sp.?).
(dagger) Canis lupus.
(dagger) Bison priscus.
(dagger) Megaceros hibernicus.
(asterisk) Cervus capreolus.
(dagger) Cervus tarandus.
(dagger) Cervus Sedgwickii.
(asterisk) Arvicola amphibia.
(asterisk) Castor (Trogontherium) Cuvieri.
(asterisk) Castor europaeus.
(asterisk) Palaeospalax magnus.
(dagger) Trichecus rosmarus, Walrus.
(dagger) Monodon monoceros, Narwhal.
(dagger) Balaenoptera.
Mr. Gunn informs me that the vertebrae of two distinct whales were found in the fluvio-marine beds at Bacton, and that one of them, shown to Professor Owen, is said by him to imply that the animal was 60 feet long. A narwhal's tusk was discovered by Mr. King near Cromer, and the remains of a walrus. No less than three species of elephant, as determined by Dr. Falconer, have been obtained from the strata 3 and 3 prime, of which, according to Mr. King, E. meridionalis is the most common, the mammoth next in abundance, and the third, E. antiquus, comparatively rare.
The freshwater shells accompanying the fossil quadrupeds, above enumerated, are such as now inhabit rivers and ponds in England; but among them, as at Runton, between the "forest bed" and the glacial deposits, a remarkable variety of the Cyclas amnica occurs (Figure 28), identical with that which accompanies the Elephas antiquus at Ilford and Grays in the valley of the Thames.
All the freshwater shells of the beds intervening between the Forest-bed Number 3, and the glacial formation 4, Figure 27, are of Recent species. As to the small number of marine shells occurring in the same fluvio-marine series, I have seen none which belonged to extinct species, although one or two have been cited by authors. I am in doubt, therefore, whether to class the forest bed and overlying strata as Pleistocene, or to consider them as beds of passage between the Pliocene and Pleistocene periods. The fluvio-marine series usually terminates upwards in finely laminated sands and clays without fossils, on which reposes the boulder clay.