On some new fossil Mammalia from the Freshwater Strata. 3 fe9 
were supposed to consist in the basal portion of the lateral tail- 
feathers being white, while the T. pelagica is described by most 
authors as having the tail wholly black. I had however for some 
time suspected that the melitensis and pelagica were identical, 
having observed in my own specimen of pelagica that the lateral 
rectrices were in fact white towards the base, though this colour 
is nearly concealed by the incumbent tail-covers. 
By the kindness of Capt. Drummond I am now enabled to set 
at rest these doubts, having just received from him several speci- 
mens of the supposed species named melitensis, obtained at Malta, 
but which turn out to be quite identical with the Thalassidroma 
pelagica of the British seas. This opinion is confirmed by Mr. 
G. 11. Gray, to whom I have sent one of Capt. Drummond' s spe- 
cimens, and who assures me that he has compared it with the 
specimens of the true pelagica in the British Museum, and that 
he can find no distinctions between them. 
Capt. Drummond (who is now at Malta) has communicated to 
me the following corrections to be made in his papers on the birds 
of the Ionian Islands and of Crete. 
The species entered as Picus major (Annals, vol. xii. p. 418) 
should be P. leuconotus, — the P. major not being found in Corfu. 
The birds which are sold at Malta to the uninitiated for snipes 
(p. 418) are the Upupa epops, and not (as stated through a mis- 
print) the Yunx torquilla. 
The falcon mentioned at p. 423, as chasing beetles in the even- 
ing in Crete, is proved on further examination to be the Falco 
Eleonorce, and not F. subbuteo, which last species was not noticed 
in Crete. Falco Eleonorce may also be included, though as a rare 
bird, in the fauna of the Ionian Islands, a specimen having been 
obtained from the island of Fano. 
XL VI. — Record of the discovery of an Alligator, with several 
new Mammalia in the Freshwater Strata at Hordwell. By 
Searles Wood, Esq. F.G.S. 
Dear Sir, York, Oct. 23, 1844. 
As the Report in the Athenaeum of the late Meeting of the Bri- 
tish Association here, does not contain any abstract of the highly 
important discoveries made by Mr. Searles Wood in the fresh- 
water strata at Hordwell, perhaps you will find room in the forth- 
coming Number of the ' Annals ' for a brief notice of this gen- 
tleman's researches. 
Yours, dear Sir, most faithfully, 
Edward Charlesworth. 
Richard Taylor, Esq. 
Part of the summer of 1843 was devoted by Mr. Wood to an 
350 On some new fossil Mammalia from the Freshwater Strata. 
examination of the celebrated freshwater cliff at Hordwell in 
Hampshire, and upon quitting England in the early part of this 
year Mr. Wood intrusted to me for publication the new fossils 
which he had discovered, accompanied by manuscript notes. To 
these he requested I would append such remarks as a more full 
examination of the respective specimens might enable me to 
furnish. 
Of the remains in question referable to the Mammalia, the most 
instructive specimen is an imperfect cranium of a Pachydermatous 
quadruped, for which Mr. Wood proposes the generic name Mi- 
crochoerus. It comes very near Hyracotherium in the general 
aspect of the molar teeth, but its size could hardly have exceeded 
that of the hedgehog (Erinaceus europmus). It had moreover 
no interspace between the second and first spurious molar, nor 
between this last-named tooth and that which in Hyracotherium 
Prof. Owen regards as a canine. The last molar also differs very 
decidedly in shape from that of Hyracotherium, but until more 
species of this group are known, generic distinctions can only be 
regarded as provisional, and in the present case the characters 
assumed as generic may hereafter prove to be only specific. Most 
fortunately one ramus of the lower jaw was found with the above, 
demonstrating that Microchcerus has that remarkable prolonga- 
tion backwards of the angle so strikingly displayed in Chceropo- 
tamus. 
Mr. Waterhouse takes the following view of the dental formula 
of this genus : — 
Incisors \Z\j canines qZq > ^ se molars 434; true molars 333; 
= 34 
1 st. % The specific name of erinaceus is proposed by Mr. Wood 
for this new addition to British fossil Mammalia. 
2nd. Part of the upper jaw of a very small nondescript mammal, 
with highly complicated molar teeth, clearly insectivorous, but not 
sufficiently perfect to decide upon its generic relations*. 
3rd. A trifid mammalian tooth cleft nearly to the base of its 
crown as in the genus Stenorhynchus, and which I believe to be 
the tooth of a seal. 
4th. A mammalian tooth remarkably compressed, with a single 
lateral lobe. I think this may also be referable to a seal. 
* Mr. Flower of Croydon, stimulated by Mr. Wood's success, pursued the 
investigation of the Hordwell cliff, and along with other interesting fossils 
obtained a considerable portion of the lower jaw of a small insectivorous 
mammal, which he was so obliging as to lend to Mr. Wood, that it 
might be described along with the new mammalia previously discovered. 
For this fossil I suggested at the Meeting of the British Association the pro- 
visional generic term Spalacodon. 
Bibliographical Notices. 351 
5th. A scapula, apparently of the Palceotherium, in fine preser- 
vation ; also a portion of the upper jaw with several molar teeth 
in situ. 
6th. A great portion of the head of an alligator, having nearly- 
all the upper range of teeth (42 in number) remaining, along with 
the humerus, dermal scuta? and other parts of the skeleton. 
This fossil, I think, may be regarded as the most interesting 
Saurian relic yet discovered in British or continental tertiary 
strata. The remains were imbedded in the fine siliceous sand of 
which the freshwater deposit at Hordwell is chiefly composed, 
and with the exception of a change in colour and chemical com- 
position, are presented to the study of the palaeontologist in a 
state which would challenge comparison with those of any recent 
skeleton. Mr. Wood's discovery too constitutes I believe the^rstf 
authentic record of the occurrence of the alligator in the fossil 
state. In the same deposit this gentleman found numerous scales 
and vertebrae of the Lepidosteus, a genus of fishes now associated 
with the alligator in the new world. Mr. Wood proposes to call 
the Hordwell alligator A. Hantoniensis.* 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 
Naturgetreue Abbildungen und Beschreibungen der essbaren, schadlichen 
und verdachtigen Schwamme. Von J. V. Krombholz. Prag, 1831- 
1843. 
Eight parts of this splendid work, containing sixty-two plates, were 
published, when it was arrested by the death of the author in the 
course of last autumn. Fourteen more plates however had been en- 
graved, before the ' Epicrisis ' of Fries was published in which they 
are quoted, and which appeared in 1836, but was some time pre- 
viously in the hand of the printer. These we have obtained from 
Prag through the kindness of M. Corda ; and we believe that the 
drawings from which they were made are lost together with the 
greater part of the specimens ; there is therefore no probability of 
their ever being published. The work then must be considered as 
ending with the sixty- second plate, and we confidently recommend 
it as a storehouse of excellent figures which are due to the pencil of 
M. Corda, who is no less happy in the delineation of larger objects 
than in the minute forms of fungi, on which he has thrown so much 
light ; indeed the whole execution of the work is due to him, 
Krombholz himself having done little more than the editorial part. 
The figures and dissections, it must be remembered, were made some 
time before the recent discoveries of the true structure of the hyme- 
nium, and at a time when M. Corda was neither so practised in the 
use of the microscope nor possessed of so good an instrument as at 
present; the analyses therefore are not what one would expect from 
* It is Mr. Wood's intention shortly to publish a more detailed account 
of these fossils, accompanied by illustrations.