REPTILES AND BATRACHIANS This section of the fauna of Norfolk will occupy a very small space, but there are two facts to which I should like briefly to refer. The first is the discovery of the remains of the European freshwater tortoise {Emys orbicularis^ Linn.) in certainly a very recent deposit, and under circumstances which, regarded in conjunction with other finds in the same neighbourhood, seem to render it not impossible that this species may have existed contemporaneously with the human inhabitants of the locality. This interesting occurrence was brought to light through the vigilance of Professor Newton, and was by him communicated to the Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist, for September, 1862 (vol. x. p. 224). In the year 1836 Mr. Wyrley Birch, the proprietor of the Wretham estate, when cleaning out a peat bog by the side of a spring pit at East Wretham, found, about seven feet below the surface and beneath a bed of hypnum, a number of bones and a good part of the outer skeletons of two small tortoises, which proved to belong to this species. It is worthy of mention that in another lake or ' mere ' in the parish of West Wretham, the remains of a pile building were discovered, around which were a very large number of the bones of Bos longifrons and Cervus elaphus, which, in addition to the artificial character of the site in which they were found, bore evident traces of man's handiwork. Professor Newton expresses the opinion that the manner in which these bones had been treated is not only conclusive evidence that the long-faced ox was contemporaneous with man, but also strong presumptive evidence that this animal was domesticated by the aborigines of Britain before the Roman invasion. The remains of Emys orbicularis have also been found, in the year 1863, in the deposit known as the ' Mundesley river bed,' a freshwater deposit of small extent on the Norfolk coast of post-glacial origin.' The other species to which I wish to refer is the edible frog {Rana esculenta, Linn.), which, even if it be a doubtful native, has so curious and interesting a history in this and the adjoining county of Cambridgeshire that it should not be passed over without a brief notice. This Batrachian was discovered at Whaddon, and in Foulmire Fen in Cambridgeshire, as long ago as the year 1 844, and Professor Bell was assured that it had • See E. T. Newton, Geol. Mag., 1879, p. 304 ; and H. B. Woodward, Trans. Nor/, and Nor. Nat. Soc, iii. (1880) p. 36. 217
