PREFATORY NOTICE. 
Vll 
the walls of our Museum, I must notice the beautiful fresh¬ 
water Chelonians of the genus Pleurosternon, from the Pur- 
beck beds; one of which, perhaps the finest in the series, we 
owe to the generosity of A. A. Yansittart, Esq. formerly a 
Fellow of Trinity College. 
, With the exception of some good fossil Chelonians (which 
I collected many years since on the Suffolk and Essex coast), 
we did not, till quite a recent period, possess any good rep¬ 
tilian remains from our Tertiary formations. But since 
Mr H. Keeping became an Assistant in the Woodwardian 
Museum, we have—partly through his intervention, partly 
by his own skilful labour, and partly by diggings con¬ 
ducted under his personal direction, obtained very valuable 
remains of Mammals, Reptiles, Fishes and Plants from var¬ 
ious parts of the Hampshire coast: especially from the 
celebrated cliff of Hordwell (often noticed in the old Wood¬ 
wardian Catalogues) and from the rich deposits of Hamp¬ 
stead on the north-west coast of the Isle of Wight. 
Along with this remark I may especially notice the Cro¬ 
codilian and Chelonian remains from the Hordwell cliff, 
obtained by him during this and the preceding year, with 
the liberal permission and kind assistance of Colonel Clinton, 
by help of diggings conducted within the estate. The rep¬ 
tilian remains dug out last year were in multitudinous frag¬ 
ments that seemed to defy any attempt at reconstruction. 
They were, however, hardened, secured, and put together 
with such hopeful and patient skill by Mr Keeping, that they 
at length found a place among the goodly ornaments of our 
Museum and among its best-defined species: and he is now 
employed on a like task among the Crocodilian and Che¬ 
lonian spoils he has gained from the same locality during 
the present summer. 
It is not, however, among the more perfect specimens of 
the reptilian species—such as have been referred to in the 
previous notice—that the Cambridge naturalist and compara¬ 
tive anatomist will seek his best materials for study. He 
will rather dwell upon the great collection of reptilian bones, 
