INTRODUCTION. xvii 



t>ridge ;* but there are numerous fine fragments also in the 

 British Museum, Museum of Practical Geology, York 

 Museum, and the private cabinet of Mr. Thomas Jesson, 

 F.G.S., of Northampton ; and few collections of importance 

 .are destitute of a typical series of specimens. The Verte- 

 brate fossils of the Gault are more satisfactorily preserved 

 than those of the Cambridge Greensand, and are represented 

 in the British Museum, Museum of Practical Geology, and 

 the Woodwardian Museum, to which they have been chiefly 

 supplied, either directly or indirectly, by the experienced 

 collector, Mr. John Griffiths, of Folkestone. Chalk fossils 

 are seen in most Museums, and the Fishes usually occur 

 in an exquisite state of preservation. The late Dr. Gideon 

 A. Mantell, F.R.S., as in the case of the Wealden Verte- 

 brata, was a pioneer in the collection of those of the 

 Chalk of Sussex ; and the numerous fine examples of his 

 patient work of extrication now in the British Museum are 

 described and figured both by Agassiz and by himself. Mr. 

 Frederic Dixon, of Worthing, author of the well-known 

 Geology and Fossils of Sussex,^ the late Dr. J. S. Bower- 

 bank, F.R.S., and Mrs. Smith, of Tunbridge Wells, also 

 obtained the type specimens of many of the species of 

 Fossil Fishes and Reptiles discovered in the Chalk of 

 Sussex, Kent, and Surrey, at present, with rare exceptions, 

 preserved in the British Museum ; and for a long period 

 Mr. Henry Willett, F.G.S., of Brighton, has been engaged 

 in collecting the unrivalled series of Chalk fossils, now 

 presented to the Brighton Museum.* In more recent 



* H. G. Seeley, Index to the Fossil Remains oj Aves, Ornitho- 

 sauria,and Reptilia .... in the Woodwardian Museum, 1869; also 

 Omithosauria, 1 8 70. 



t This work is dated 1850, but was not published until after the 

 author's death, and, according to Morris and Mr. William Davies 

 (in litt.), was not issued before 1852. 



J In the first edition of Dixon's Geology of Sussex, and in some 

 of the memoirs of Owen and Egerton, Mr. Willett is referred to 

 under his earlier surname of Catt. 



