Page:VCH Norfolk 1.djvu/61

 PALEONTOLOGY TO the student of the past history of vertebrate animals Norfolk is an area of especial interest, on account of the numerous remains of mammals buried in the so-called Forest Bed and the underlying Norwich Crag, both of which deposits are almost restricted to the county. Vertebrate remains also occur in certain more superficial deposits in the county, such as those of the old river valley at Mundesley, as well as in the peat of the fens. With regard to the remains from the peat of the fens, with the exception of the giant Irish deer, these belong entirely to species still existing, although several of them have long since been exterminated from Britain, while the aurochs, or wild ox, is now represented only by its degenerate domesticated descendants. Of species still existing in the county it will be unnecessary to say anything. The exterminated mammals which have left their bones in the peat include the wolf {Cams lupus) ^ the brown bear [Ursus arctus), the beaver {Castor Jiber), the wild boar {Sus scrofaferus), the aurochs {Bos taurus primigenius), and the rein- deer {Rangifer tarandus). Whether all these have been actually found in the Norfolk fen deposits it is not easy to ascertain, although they certainly occur in those of the adjacent county of Cambridge. A splendid skull of the reindeer was, however, disinterred many years ago from the peat of Bilney Moor near East Dereham. The late Sir R. Owen recorded remains of the beaver at the base of the peat at Hilgay ; with these were also found bones of the giant Irish deer, or ' elk ' {Cervus giganteus), the typical race of which appears to have been unknown at the epoch of the Forest Bed. The fens also yield remains of the Celtic shorthorn, which seems to have been a domesticated breed of cattle ; while antlers and bones of the red deer {Cervus elaphus) and the roe {Capreolus vulgaris) — both species which have long since dis- appeared from the county — are likewise met with. Very interesting is the occurrence in the peat of the Norfolk fens of a wing-bone of a pelican apparently nearly allied to the South European species. From the Mundesley river bed, which occupies a trough cut in the lower portion of the glacial deposits, there was obtained some years ago an imperfect shell of the European pond tortoise {Emys orbicularis), the specimen in question being apparently the only evidence of the former existence of that reptile in Britain. Bones of the red-throated diver {Colymbus septentrionalis) have likewise been obtained at Mundesley. 31