202 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY ; OR, 



cidedly marine. Remains of fish are very abundant, scales, 

 plates, teeth, ichthyodorulites, and in some instances entire 

 ichthyolites. I saw, in the collection of Mr Duff, a small 

 but very entire specimen of Lepidotus minor, with the fins 

 spread out on the limestone, as in an anatomical preparation, 

 and almost every plate and scale in its place. Some of his 

 specimens of ichthyodomlites, too, are exceedingly beauti- 

 ful, and of great size, resembling jaws thickly set with teeth, 

 the apparent teeth being mere knobs ranged along the con- 

 cave edge of the bone, the surface of which we see gracefully 

 fluted and enamelled. What most struck me, however, in 

 glancing over the drawers of Mr Duff, was the character of 

 the Ganoid scales of this deposit. The Ganoid order in the 

 days of the Weald was growing old ; and two new orders, 

 the Ctenoid and Cycloid, were on the eve of taking its 

 place in creation. Hitherto it had comprised at least two- 

 thirds of all the fish that had existed ever since the period 

 in which fish first began ; and almost every Ganoid fish had 

 its own peculiar pattern of scale. But it would now seem 

 as if well nigh all the simpler patterns were exhausted, and 

 as if, in order to give the variety which nature loves, forms 

 of the most eccentric types had to be resorted to. With 

 scarce any exception save that furnished by the scales of the 

 Lepidotus minor, which are plain lozenge-shaped plates, thickly 

 japanned, the forms are strangely complex and irregular, 

 easily expressible by the pencil, but beyond the reach of the 

 pen. The remains of reptiles have been found occasionally, 

 though rarely, in this outlier of the Weald, the vertebra 

 of a Plesiosaurus, the femur of some Chelonian reptile, and a 

 large fluted tooth, supposed Saurian. 



I would fain have visited some of the neighbouring out- 

 liers of the Oolite, but time did not permit. Mr Duffs col- 

 lection, however, enabled me to form a tolerably adequate esti- 

 mate of their organic contents. Viewed in the group, these 



