A Find in the Gipping Valley

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A FIND IN THE GIPPING VALLEY TRENCHING for a new sewage system has been in progress at Bramford for many months, mainly in ancient terrace gravels of the River Gipping which appear to have been deposited toward the close of the Pleistocene epoch. No mammalian fossils had been discovered until the 23 rd April when a magnificent antler of Reindeer, Rangifer tarandus, was unearthed at a depth of twelve feet below the road surface, and about nine feet above the present river bed. T h e antler was broken and portions are probably still buried ; these cannot be recovered because of the crumbly nature of the sand and gravel. T h e antler, which is from the left side, is much larger than any other specimen found in the Ipswich area and must have belonged to an old animal which was equal in size to a fine head of a Caribou from Canada, which is in the Ipswich Museum. It is estimated to have been at least forty inches in length along the curve and the beam is two inches diameter. T h e largest portion is twenty-two inches long from where it is broken off just above the bez tine to the beginning of the palmation, of which only two pieces were saved. It is considered the gravels may be richer in mammalian remains at a greater depth and to be very slightly later than the deposits on the opposite side of the river at Barham. ^

NOTES ON THE FEEDING OF THE LONG-EARED T H E E A R L OF

HABITS BAT

CRANBROOK

THAT bats navigate by echo-location is well known. T h e y give out bursts of ultra-sonic impulses when in flight and are able to identify obstacles in their path by the echoes of those Impulses reflected back and picked up by their ears. A bhndfold bat avoids obstacles as easily as a fĂźll sighted one : a bat with its ears plugged is helpless, blundering into obstacles whether in light or darkness, fĂźll sighted or blindfold. T h e ultra-somc Impulses are sound waves emitted at frequencies far beyond the compass of the human ear though bats also make audible " con-


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