232 GEOLOGY OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



may be observed above a bed of sand full of 

 terebratulae. 



The fossil lobsters, the most beautiful of the 

 Atherfield fossils, may generally be met with after 

 recent slips of the cliff involving masses of the 

 strata (Nos. 3 and 5, pp. 225, 226,) in which they 

 occur. The vignette of this volume {engraved by 

 Mr. Lee from a drawing by Mr. J. Dinkel) repre- 

 sents an exquisite specimen from a fallen block 

 lying near the pathway at the foot of Atherfield 

 Cliff. 



Minute bones of fishes in the lowermost clay, 

 and a few teeth of the Shark family, are the only 

 remains of vertebrate animals I have observed ; 

 but Capt. Ibbetson has obtained from these cliffs 

 a specimen of extraordinary interest. It is a 

 considerable portion of the skull, with the bones of 

 the face and the jaws and teeth attached, of a 

 species of Hybodus; a genus of fishes of the shark 

 tribe, having teeth of a transversely elongated 

 form, with a series of compressed conical cusps, of 

 which the middle one is the longest.* 



In this remarkable fossil the mouth is open, and 

 forms a semilunar aperture six inches wide. The 

 upper jaw has twenty-four teeth, and the lower 

 nineteen, in their natural position ; two rows of 



* Medals of Creation, vol. ii. p. 622. 



