NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 263
burrows exists in the solid and undisturbed chalk, and several feet beneath its
surface. I did not see the clawmarks of which Mr. Emson speaks in his note
as the weathering of the chalk had effaced them at the time of my visit. The
only suggestion in the matter I am able to make is that they are the burrows of
a Badger, as their average diameter—about 1 ft.—would seem to indicate that
animal. I do not think it possible that the claws of any other British mammal
could have excavated such burrows ; indeed, but for the fact that I believe the
burrows to be unquestionably due to some mammal, I should not have considered
it possible that even a Badger could have excavated them. Had it not been for
this consideration, the burrows might equally well have been those of the fox or
wolf. Among the loose rubble with which the holes were filled, I found not a
few specimens of the Helix nemoralis and the antique type of Helix arbustorum,
commonly known as the variety alpestris. As the chalk is still being excavated
at the locality in question, further burrows of the same sort may yet be brought
to light.—Miller Christy, F.L.S., Pryors, Broomfield, Chelmsford.
John Brown, F.G.S., of Stanway.—In the "Life of Richard Owen," by
his grandson, the Rev. Richard Owen (London, 1894), are the following references
to the late Essex geologist, John Brown, of whom a memoir, with portrait, by
Mr. A. P. Wire, was published in The Essex Naturalist for 1890 (vol. iv.,
pp. 158-168. In 1842, Sir Richard (then Professor) Owen wrote (vol. i., p. 201) :
" I spent one pleasant day at a farmhouse at Stanway, a pretty Essex village,
with John Brown, a widower, retired on a [decent competency, known the country
round by the name of 'Mr. Pickwick,' and the closest approximation to Boz's
famed type that I have yet had the pleasure of being acquainted with. Like
the founder of the Pickwick Club, he solaceth himself with virtuosoizing in
antiquities ; but, as the immortal Cuvier hath it, 'of a higher order' than those
which amuse the F. A. S.'s. A good day's work I had amongst honest John Brown's
fossils, whose housekeeper at last grew a little testy at the reiterated inquiries 'if
everything was proper and comfortable for the Professor.' "
In 1843, Owen recorded (p. 212) "a visit from Mr. Darwin, who has
much improved in health. After his departure, Mr. Brown, of Stanway, Colchester
—the veritable and original Mr. Pickwick, I do believe—came in. He stayed to
dinner."
Again, on page 89, it is recorded that "On December 3rd, 1859, he sends a
letter to his sister Eliza, announcing the death of John Brown of Stanway, and
stating that he has been bequeathed some books, instruments, and collections, and
a legacy of £50, and that he is going down with the executor, Professor Henslow,
to make arrangements for the funeral.
" Mr. John Brown's collection, amounting to some 8,000 specimens, was
bequeathed to Professor Owen, who immediately transferred it to the British
Museum, 'with the view that a selection might be made of all such objects as
were found to be desiderata to the geological department.' The National
Collection was thus enriched by a large number of interesting specimens relating
to the Pleistocene geology of Essex."—Extracted by Mr. T. V. Holmes.
Aid in the Determination of Fossils.—All who have attempted to deter-
mine a miscellaneous collection of fossils from any geological formation, have
soon discovered the difficulty of affixing correct names to all the specimens, and
if they have been doing this work with the object of publishing some paper,
either dealing with the stratigraphy of a district, or attempting to correlate
geological horizons in different parts of the world, they have probably given the