Turtles in the Stonesfield Slate

Abstract

Some time since, a gentleman handed me, at one of the meetings of the Geologists' Association, a bone from the Stonesfield slate. Unfortunately the label attached to the specimen has been accidentally lost, and consequently I can neither give due credit to its owner for his find nor return the specimen to him as I would wish to do, as his name and address are both thus unknown to me.The nature of the specimen was very evident, at the first glance, to any practised palæontologist. It is a bone that is peculiarly characteristic of a peculiar class of reptiles which, at the present day, comprises the tortoises, terrapins, and turtles. In short, it is the coracoid bone of some member of the family Chelonia.Our evidences of this order of reptiles, in strata of Mesozoic age, are few and far between; but Chelonian remains are rare in the Secondary beds, chiefly by reason that many of our most productive localities are neglected to be well worked.