A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



Strensham group, which takes its title from the village of that name east 

 of Upton-on-Severn. From these particular beds the late Rev. P. B. Brodie 

 succeeded in obtaining a number of insect remains of great interest/ 



Of the vertebrate fossils of Worcestershire by far the most im- 

 portant are the primitive fishes of the lower portion of the Old Red 

 Sandstone. Since, however, only a very small area of the county is 

 occupied by this formation, the number of species of these fishes that 

 have actually been discovered within its limits falls considerably short of 

 those known from Ledbury and Cradley, in Herefordshire, where ex- 

 cellent sections of these strata are exposed. On the other hand, all these 

 Old Red Sandstone fishes may really be regarded as pertaining to the 

 Worcestershire fauna, since it must be largely due to accident that 

 specimens of the whole of them have not hitherto been found within 

 its borders ; and some of the Cradley section runs into the county. 



Most of these fishes belong to an entirely distinct group, which 

 ceased to exist before the close of the Paleozoic epoch, and are 

 characterized by the head and body being enveloped in a bony cuirass, 

 and the imperfect ossification of the internal skeleton. The group is 

 collectively known as the Ostracodermi, but is divided into three sec- 

 tions. Among the first section, in which the head and fore part of the 

 body were protected by a bony shield while the hinder half of the 

 body and tail were covered by small angular plates or scales, remains 

 of Pteraspis rostrata have been discovered at Heightington and Trimpley, 

 and those of P/. crouchi at the first-named place. This second section, 

 in which the head assumes a different form, and is shaped like a bent 

 cheese-cutter, is represented by Cephalaspis lyelli and C saliveyi in the 

 Lower Old Red Sandstone of Heightington ; the former being typically 

 a Scottish species, while the latter is confined to the west of England. A 

 totally different Palaeozoic group of fish-like creatures is that of the berry- 

 bone fishes, or Arthrodira, of which the typical representative is the 

 well-known Coccosteus of the Scottish Old Red Sandstone. In these 

 strange creatures the armour, which is confined to the head and fore part 

 of the body, has the external surface like coarse shagreen ; and although 

 there were no pectoral fins, the pelvic pair were well developed. The 

 group is represented in the Old Red Sandstone of the county by 

 Phlyctanaspis anglica, a species first described on the evidence of Here- 

 fordshire specimens. Another Herefordshire Old Red Sandstone fish, 

 Climatius ornatus, belonging to a group of primitive sharks known as 

 Acanthodii, also occurs in the corresponding formation of the county. 



In the Carboniferous rocks fish remains appear to be very scarce, but 

 a tooth from Bewdley in the British Museum indicates a pavement- 

 toothed shark belonging to the family Cochliodontida . In the Keuper such 

 remains are less uncommon, and the species Acrodus keuperitius, a pave- 

 ment-toothed shark of the family Cestraciontidce, has been named on the 

 evidence of Worcestershire specimens which occur at Pendock, Ripple, 



» See Brodie, Fossil Insects (1845). 

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