DESCRIPTION OF FISHES. 195 
Subkingdom VERTEBRATA. 
Class PISCES. 
THERE is no department of natural history more interesting and instructive 
than that of Ichthyology. When we consider that more than three-fifths of the 
earth’s surface is covered with water, and that fishes of the greatest beauty and 
variety abound in countless numbers from the warmest to the coldest latitudes, 
it is not surprising that this study should have largely occupied the attention of 
the great Cuvier, and of late years have been so admirably continued and 
advanced by Professor Agassiz. But not only in the arrangement of recent 
fishes does the genius of Agassiz appear ; he has also introduced a classification 
founded on the characters of the scales, which is of the utmost importance to 
the collector of fossil fishes, who is now enabled to abandon the vague term of 
Ichthyolite, and arrange his cabinet on scientific principles, giving to each speci- 
men its appropriate place in the series of extinct species. 
Professor Agassiz has determined nearly fifteen hundred species of fossil fishes 
in the various strata of the different geological periods ; of these five or six 
hundred belong to this country, all of which are specifically and most of them 
generically distinct from the eight thousand recent species which he has exa- 
mined. This is one of the most remarkable results of geology, aided by accurate 
zoological knowledge. 
Fishes have been arranged by Baron Cuvier under two great divisions, called 
Ossei or bony, and Chondropterygii or cartilaginous*. 
The remains of fishes in a fossil state most frequently found at Bracklesham, 
are principally of the cartilaginous order, and of the groups of Sharks and Rays. 
The Sharks (Squalide) include the genera Galeocerdo, Otodus, Lamna and Car- 
charodon, and the Rays (Raiide) Pristis, Myliobates and Altobates. There are 
* Although there has not been discovered in Sussex so great a number and variety of fossil fishes 
as have been obtained from Sheppey, where the heads of fishes with the teeth in their natural position, 
and sometimes perfect specimens with scales and fins are found, of which the cabinets of the Earl of 
Enniskillen, Sir P. Egerton, and Mr. Bowerbank have furnished the means of determining upwards of 
sixty species, yet the localities of Bracklesham and Selsey may be considered unrivalled for the num- 
ber of palatal remains of Myliobates, Aitobates and Edaphodon, which occur there in the best state 
of preservation. 
