392 Professor Buckland on the Mesralosaurus 



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The bones of long-legged birds, apparently allied to the order Grallae, which 

 frequent the shores and shallow fords of seas or lakes, are found also imbedded 

 in the same stratum, and afford, I believe, the most ancient example yet 

 discovered of the occurrence of fossil birds, which, like the terrestrial quadru- 

 peds, have hitherto (with one exception mentioned in the sequel) been noticed 

 only in strata above the chalk. 



The elytrons also (or exterior sheath of the wings) of more than one spe- 

 cies of beetle occur in the same slate, and, excepting in this instance and 

 in the shale of the Danby coal-pits of the oolite formation in Yorkshire, (see 

 page 2 of Contents of the Geological Survey of the eastern Part of Yorkshire, 

 by Messrs. Bird and Young,) have not hitherto been discovered, I believe, in 

 any stratum below the chalk. 



The megalosaurus itself was probably an amphibious animal, and we might 

 therefore expect (as is actually the case) to find it associated with the remains 

 of other amphibia, e. g. the scales and teeth of crocodiles and scales of tor- 

 toises. There are also teeth which appear to belong to the plesiosaurus. 



The remains of land animals and amphibia are small in number, however, 

 in comparison of the marine exuvias with which this stratum is crowded ; 

 besides an immense number of species of sliells decidedly marine, e. g. nau- 

 tili, ammonites, trigoniae, and belemnites, there occur abundantly the teeth 

 of sharks, and the teeth, palates, scales, spines, and bones of many unknown 

 species of fish, together with the remains of two or three species of small crus- 

 taceous animals of the crab and lobster kind. In the nearly adjacent quarries 

 of cornbrash limestone, at a place called Gibraltar, near Enslow Bridge on the 

 east of Woodstock, the bones of large cetaceous animals are accompanied by 

 the scales, teeth, and bones of a species of crocodile nearly resembling the 

 modern gavial or crocodile of the Ganges, and by numerous marine shells. 

 This cornbrash is the same with that which at Stonesfield is immediately 

 incumbent on the bed that is worked for slate. 



Of the vegetable kingdom also, the remains which occur at Stonesfield are 

 very numerous, and present a no less curious assemblage of genera than the 

 animals. We find an abundance of plants decidedly terrestrial, e. g. frag- 

 ments of trees and ferns ; several species of seeds and fruits ; and branches 

 and leaves which nearly resemble the Thuia and the ginger plant of modern 

 botany. There are others, apparently lacustrine or fluviatile, e. g. gigantic 

 reeds and grasses ; and others again decidedly marine, e. g. alga?, fuci, &c. 

 All these vegetable fragments are dispersed in the same irregular manner, and 

 are mixed up with the wreck of the marine, amphibious, and terrestrial ani- 

 mals above enumerated. 



