OF CREATION. 



247 



Besides these sauroid fishes, which were unques- 

 tionably very predaceous, a vast number of sharks of 

 different kinds must have existed, their teeth and 

 bony spines being found abundantly, although gene- 

 rally detached in various places in the chalk. The 

 scales of placoid fishes not inclosing the animal in a 

 bony case covered with enamel, as is the case with 

 ganoid fish, and the skeleton being either nearly or 

 entirely cartilaginous, the body would speedily un- 

 dergo decomposition after death, so that the different 

 hard parts, the teeth (108), palatal bones (109), and 



Fig. 109 



SHARKS' TEETH. 



fin rays, became irregularly distributed. It is in 

 this manner accordingly that we find them. 



The fishes in the chalk allied to the existing cy- 

 cloid and ctenoid orders are best illustrated by an ac- 

 count of the Beryx, closely allied to the perch, and 

 the Osmeroides, whose nearest analogue is the salmon. 



The Beryx is a very common fish in the chalk of 

 the south-east of England, and there are there found 

 three distinct species. All of them are of small size, 

 the largest not more than a foot long, but the scales 

 are very large in proportion, and the head is also 



