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Description of the Skull of a Species of Halitherium (H. Canhami) from the Red Crag of Suffolk

1874; Geological Society of London; Volume: 30; Issue: 1-4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1144/gsl.jgs.1874.030.01-04.15

2058-105X

William Henry Flower,

Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology

While looking, a few weeks ago, over the very rich collection of Crag fossils formed by the Rev. H. Canham, of Waldringfield, near Woodbridge, that gentleman called my attention to an unusually fine fragment of a skull, which he had been unable to identify with any known form. He very obligingly allowed me to bring it to London for the purpose of careful examination and comparison; and I have the pleasure of exhibiting it to the Society this evening. The specimen was found in the so-called “coprolite” or bone-bed at the base of the Red Crag at Foxhall, about two miles from Waldringfield; and it presents the usual aspect of the mammalian remains from that bed. It is heavily mineralized, of a rich dark brown colour, almost black in some parts, with the surface much worn and polished, and marked here and there with the characteristic round or oval shallow pits, the supposed Pholas -borings. Unfortunately, before it was extracted from the matrix in which it lay, it was broken by the pick into several pieces, some of which were lost by the workmen; but all that were preserved have been skilfully reunited by Mr. Canham. The great interest of this skull consists in its affording the first recorded evidence of the former existence of an animal of the remarkable order Sirenia in this country.