Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 35.djvu/624

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The Sharks' remains are the most varied and numerous of all the vertebrates of the Maltese Miocene. Their teeth have found their way into almost every public collection in Europe, and continue to furnish employment to persons who make it their business to dispose of them to travellers. With the exception of the Upper Lime- stone, they have been found in all the beds. From a large experience in collecting and determining the Maltese species, I have been enabled to furnish the following Table of their stratigraphical distribution.

So far as I know, none of these Squalidæ has been discovered in the upper and middle portions of the Upper Limestone. They suddenly appear, however, at the point of junction between the Red Limestone and the Sand bed, where they are plentiful, especially Carcharodon megalodon, some of the largest specimens of the teeth of which have been discovered here. The Maltese historian, Boisgelin, refers to one as much as 7 inches on its largest side ; and I have referred to a tooth from the black sand 6⋅3 inches in length. It is in this bed, and the Calcareous Sandstone, more especially in the upper "nodule seams," that they abound, and in the latter associated with Mollusca and Echinodermata.

I have rarely found teeth in the Lower Limestone, and these only of the two species recorded above.

As regards numbers, they are met with in the order given, the two rarest being Odontaspis Hopei (which, however, I have not seen with its dentils), and Lamna elegans.

A tooth resembling that of this species is figured by Scilla ;