Page:VCH Sussex 1.djvu/70

 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX and wild ox {Bos taurus primigenius) from other localities in the county, such as Hove, Burton Park and Peppering near Arundel. At the latter place it is beUeved that a whole skeleton of a mammoth occurred in gravelly loam some 80 feet above the level of the Arun. Red deer remains have also occurred near the barracks at Brighton, as well as in the Western Road ; and those of the mammoth at Patcham, Portslade, Bognor and near Hastings. Occasionally too mammoth teeth are dredged off Brighton. The neighbourhood of Lewes has likewise yielded remains of the red deer and the Celtic shorthorn ; while others from the same locality have been provisionally assigned to the southern right whale {Balana biscayensis) and the narwhal [Monodo?i monoceros). From a deposit at West Wittering Mr. C. Reid ' has recorded remains of Elephas and Rhinoceros in the lower strata, and those of Bos in a higher bed ; and to these species Mr. J. P. Johnson^ has added the water-vole [Mkrotus amphibius) and the common frog {Rana temporarid). But the most celebrated of these Sussex mammaliferous deposits is undoubtedly the Brighton ' elephant-bed,' first described by Mantell, and so named on account of the abundance of molars of the mammoth. This deposit also yields remains of the horse, the wild boar {Sus scrofa ferns), the woolly rhinoceros {Rhinoceros antiquitatis), and, it is said, the Pleistocene hippopotamus {Hippopota?nus amphibius tnajor). From the same deposit have been obtained a vertebra and part of the lower jaw, now in the British Museum, of Rudolphi's finner-whale {Balcenoptera borealis). Passing on to the Middle Eocene deposits of Bracklesham Bay — the ' Bracklesham beds ' of geologists — we find that these have yielded teeth of a small mammal, Lophiodon minimus, distantly allied to the modern tapirs. The species in question was originally described from the Eocene deposits of France. Some of the teeth from Bracklesham are figured on page 311 of Owen's British Fossil Mammals and Birds ; they were collected by Bowerbank, and are now in the British Museum. Remains of five different species of extinct reptiles have also been described from the Bracklesham beds. Of especial interest are those of a long-snouted crocodile, described by Owen under the name of Garialis (or Gavialis) dixoni ; but their inclusion in the same genus as the living gharial of the Ganges must be regarded as a provisional measure. They are the only known remains of the species, and are preserved in the British Museum, Most of the other reptilian remains from these deposits belong to the chelonian order. One of these is a species of soft tortoise, which has been named by the present writer' Trionyx bowerbanki. The remaining forms are marine turtles, of which the most abundant is Lytoloma trigoniceps, originally described by Owen (as Chclonc) on the evidence of a skull from Bracklesham. The genus Lytoloma is confined to the Eocene period, the present species (like most of the reptiles from the same deposits) being peculiar to the Bracklesham beds. A single bone (humerus) indicates the occurrence of a species of logger- > Qunrt. Journ. Geol. Sor. xlviii. 356 (1892). ^ /j,.^^, Gco/. Asm. xvii. 263 (1901). •' Cat. Foss. Reft. Brit. Mus. iii. 19. 28