A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



within the Huntingdon border, mammoth teeth have been collected in 

 considerable numbers. 



Turning to the reptiles of the Oxford Clay, which is the highest 

 member of the Jurassic series met with in the county, these belong for 

 the most part to the marine fish-lizards or Ichthyopterygia, and long- 

 necked saurians or Sauropterygia ; but a few remains of the terrestrial 

 dinosaurs have been met with in Huntingdon. The fish-lizards of 

 the Oxford Clay are mostly referable to the genus Ophthalmosaurus, 

 which differs from the typical Ichthyosaurus by the presence of an 

 additional bone in the paddles ; and of O. icenicus remains have been 

 obtained within the county limits at Eye and Dogsthorpe. The 

 British Museum also possesses an ichthyosaurian vertebra from Scend 

 Hill, said to be from the Kimeridge, but more probably from the 

 Oxford Clay. Of the long-necked saurians, a lower jaw oi Pelomustes 

 philarchus — in which the two branches have a longer union than in 

 Pliosaurus — was obtained in the county near Peterborough. A plio- 

 saurian vertebra from Rode, four miles south of Northampton, is re- 

 corded in Phillips's Geology of Oxford ; and it is probable that Pliosaurus 

 evansi and P. ferox, which are common in Huntingdon, likewise occur 

 in Northampton. Of the true plesiosaurs, which have much longer 

 necks than the pliosaurs, it must suffice to say that remains of the 

 species known as Cryptoclidus oxoniensis, C. eurymerus, and Murceno- 

 saurus plicatus, which are so common in the Oxford Clay of Hunt- 

 ingdonshire, must almost certainly occur in the corresponding beds of 

 Northamptonshire. Less common in the Oxford Clay of the former 

 county are the remains of huge terrestrial dinosaurian reptiles known 

 as Stegosaurus^ durobrivensis and Pelorosaurus^ leedsi, and from their rarity 

 in Huntingdon it is quite probable that these gigantic reptiles may be un- 

 represented in the Northamptonshire Oxfordian. Crocodiles belonging 

 to the extinct genera Suchodus, Stetieosaurus, and Metriorhynchus (the latter 

 remarkable for the absence of the usual pitted external bony plates) are, 

 however, comparatively abundant in the Oxford Clay of Huntingdon- 

 shire, so that their remains may confidently be expected to occur in the 

 same formation across the border. 



Recognizable remains of fishes appear to be rare in the Oxfordian 

 of the county, but those of the ganoid Eurycormus egertoni have been 

 recorded, as well as certain bones of the chimasroid Ischyodus egertoni. 

 Several other types of extinct fishes have been met with in the corre- 

 sponding deposits of Huntingdonshire, but these may be passed over 

 with the bare mention that the two respectively designated Leedsia prob- 

 lematica and Hypsicormus leedsi are among the most remarkable, the 

 former being of gigantic dimensions. Both were named in honour of 

 Mr. A. N. Leeds, of Eyebury, the energetic collector of the Oxford 

 Clay vertebrates of the Peterborough neighbourhood ; and their remains 

 doubtless occur within the borders of Northamptonshire. 



' Synonym, Omosaurus. ' Synonym, Ornithopus. 



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