Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/69

 PALEONTOLOGY BEDFORD is a county of comparatively little interest to the vertebrate palaeontologist, although it is probable that if the remains of reptiles from the Oxford Clay were collected as care- fully as they have been in the neighbouring county of Hunting- don, the number of species from that formation might be very largely increased. Apparently only two species of fossil vertebrates — one a plesiosaur and the other a reptile of unknown affinity — have been named on the evidence of Bedfordshire specimens. The four horizons from which vertebrate fossils have been obtained in the county are the Pleistocene gravels of the valley of the Ouse near Bedford, the Cam- bridge Greensand, the Lower Greensand beds of Potton and the Oxford Clay. Most, if not all, of the vertebrate fossils in the Potton Sands are derived from older formations, chiefly the Kimeridge Clay, and they are therefore of much less interest than would be the case were they native to the deposit in which they occur. The occurrence of mammalian remains in the gravels of the Ouse valley was first recorded by the late Mr. James Wyatt, 1 whose collection now belongs to the corporation of Bedford. The most important pits whence the remains were obtained are those of Cardington, Harrowden, Biddenham and Kempston. The species recorded by Mr. Wyatt (many of whose specimens were submitted to Sir R. Owen) are as follows : — The wild ox or aurochs (Bos taurus primigenius), the red deer (Cervus elaphus), the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), the Pleistocene hippopotamus (Hippopotamus ampbibius major), the woolly rhinoceros (Rhinoceros anti- quitatis), the straight-tusked elephant (E/tpbas antiquus) and an undeter- mined species of bear. Specimens in the Wyatt collection are referred to the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), Pleistocene bison (Bos priscus), and cave-bear (Ursus spelceus). As I learn from private information, the Chalk — notably its middle and lower divisions — has yielded remains of fishes. Among these, the ridged and pustulated quadrangular crushing teeth of the ray-like Ptychodus are by no means uncommon, as are the pointed teeth of sharks of the genus Lamna, while those of another type of shark, Cor ax, are more rarely met with. Other remains of fishes have been referred to the genera Cimolichthys and Encbodus. 1 See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xvii. 366 (1861), xviii. 113 (1862), xx. 183 (1864). I 33 5