A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE within the Huntingdon border, mammoth teeth have been collected in considerable numbers. Turning to the reptiles of the Oxford Clay, which is the highest member of the Jurassic series met with in the county, these belong for the most part to the marine fish-lizards or Ichthyopterygia, and long- necked saurians or Sauropterygia ; but a few remains of the terrestrial dinosaurs have been met with in Huntingdon. The fish-lizards of the Oxford Clay are mostly referable to the genus Ophthalmosaurus, which differs from the typical Ichthyosaurus by the presence of an additional bone in the paddles ; and of O. icenicus remains have been obtained within the county limits at Eye and Dogsthorpe. The British Museum also possesses an ichthyosaurian vertebra from Scend Hill, said to be from the Kimeridge, but more probably from the Oxford Clay. Of the long-necked saurians, a lower jaw oi Pelomustes philarchus — in which the two branches have a longer union than in Pliosaurus — was obtained in the county near Peterborough. A plio- saurian vertebra from Rode, four miles south of Northampton, is re- corded in Phillips's Geology of Oxford ; and it is probable that Pliosaurus evansi and P. ferox, which are common in Huntingdon, likewise occur in Northampton. Of the true plesiosaurs, which have much longer necks than the pliosaurs, it must suffice to say that remains of the species known as Cryptoclidus oxoniensis, C. eurymerus, and Murceno- saurus plicatus, which are so common in the Oxford Clay of Hunt- ingdonshire, must almost certainly occur in the corresponding beds of Northamptonshire. Less common in the Oxford Clay of the former county are the remains of huge terrestrial dinosaurian reptiles known as Stegosaurus^ durobrivensis and Pelorosaurus^ leedsi, and from their rarity in Huntingdon it is quite probable that these gigantic reptiles may be un- represented in the Northamptonshire Oxfordian. Crocodiles belonging to the extinct genera Suchodus, Stetieosaurus, and Metriorhynchus (the latter remarkable for the absence of the usual pitted external bony plates) are, however, comparatively abundant in the Oxford Clay of Huntingdon- shire, so that their remains may confidently be expected to occur in the same formation across the border. Recognizable remains of fishes appear to be rare in the Oxfordian of the county, but those of the ganoid Eurycormus egertoni have been recorded, as well as certain bones of the chimasroid Ischyodus egertoni. Several other types of extinct fishes have been met with in the corre- sponding deposits of Huntingdonshire, but these may be passed over with the bare mention that the two respectively designated Leedsia prob- lematica and Hypsicormus leedsi are among the most remarkable, the former being of gigantic dimensions. Both were named in honour of Mr. A. N. Leeds, of Eyebury, the energetic collector of the Oxford Clay vertebrates of the Peterborough neighbourhood ; and their remains doubtless occur within the borders of Northamptonshire. ' Synonym, Omosaurus. ' Synonym, Ornithopus. 42
