40
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.
Plate 5. View of the Pleistocene Clacton channel from the
north-east, taken in 1911. The timbers in the background belong to the
Palace concrete groin, then in process of construction. The index
sketch below indicates ; L.C, the London Clay ; Z, the basement bed
(with Septaria, etc.) of the north-eastern side of the silted-up channel ;
further to the right the basement bed sweeps across the beach and up the
cliff, representing a steep bank of the channel, while to the left the base-
ment bed passes under the sand of the shore, and far below low tide in the
deepest part of the channel near and on the other side of the groin ; x,
blue clay, and y, various sandy beds, with elephant remains, etc., that
wedge out against the basement bed ; k, hard blue clay above the parade ;
i, estuarine sands in the upper part of the cliff ; b, trail and surface humas.
Plate 6, Fig. 1.—Lower jaw of nearly full grown individual of Elephas
antiquus, with the antepenultimate (M.1) and penultimate (M.2) true
molars in place. The first three plates of M.2 are beginning to come into
wear. The scale on the plane of the grinding surface of the molars is ÷ 5.8.
Plate 6, Fig. 2.—Upper view of the anterior portion of the lower
jaw of a very young example of the same species, on a much larger scale
than fig. 1. (÷ 2.1). The two hollows at the back, marked M.M.2, are the
front parts of the alveoli of the antepenultimate milk-molars. The
relatively long rostrum in front of the anterior cheek-teeth is notable,
compared with the relative shortening of the chin seen in fig. 1.
Plate 6, Fig. 3.—Side view of the specimen shown in fig. 1, the greater
part of M. 2 being hidden by the jaw bone. The dotted line indicates
the form of the chin of the baby elephant, if magnified to the size of the
adult, and reduced on the same scale. This shows how the long rostrum
(the ancestral character) becomes relatively shortened and turned down-
wards during early growth, a process which is carried still further in
E. primigenius.
NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
A Stork at Bocking.—Miss C. Olive de Horne Vaizey, of Bocking,
reports that a stork frequented a field adjoining her residence for ten days
in March 1924, during which time it was protected from molestation, and
finally flew away unharmed. Miss Vaizey adds that "it was not wild
at all, and took things quite calmly. It used to stand on one leg for
hours by the pond, and then every evening, about three or four o'clock,
flew towards another pond some fields away."
This bird was probably a White Stork (Ciconia alba) which had been
blown out of its course to Holland by the persistent N.E. winds then
prevailing : it is of rare occurrence in this country, only three records being
given of it for Essex. (See Birds of Essex, p. 188.)
Red-Crested Pochard and other Wild-Fowl on Essex Reservoirs.—
At Walthamstow Reservoirs, on February 16th, 1924, I had the good
fortune to identify a handsome male Red-crested Pochard (Netta rufina).