Palaeontology. 521 



propriated to the Glyptodon the armour supposed to belong to 

 the Megatherium, Mr. Owen next proves thai the latter animal was 

 unprovided with any such bony covering, arguing from a compari- 

 son of its vertebral column and pelvis with that of the Armadillo ; 

 and from the absence of the oblique processes, which in the lori- 

 cated Edentata resemble as to form and use the tie-bearers in 

 carpentry, that support the weight of a roof. The vertebral con- 

 ditions of the Megatherium are nearer to those of the Sloths and 

 Ant-eaters. We have accounts of twelve skeletons of Megatherium, 

 not one of which was found to be accompanied by bony armour. 

 Cuvier considered the Megatherium more nearly allied to the Ant- 

 eaters and Sloths than to the Armadillos. 



Captain Martin has found that many parts of the bottom of the 

 English Channel and German Ocean contain in deep water the 

 bones and tusks of Elephants. They have been dredged up be- 

 tween Boulogne and Dungeness, in the mid-sea between Dover and 

 Calais, and at the back of the Goodwin Sands ; also mid way between 

 Yarmouth and the coast of Holland. In 1837 a fisherman enclo- 

 sed in his net a vast mass of bones between the two shoals called 

 Varn and Ridge, that form a line of submarine chalk-hills between 

 Dover and Calais. Captain Martin says these bones do not occur 

 on the top of banks or shoals, but in deep hollows or marine valleys. 

 Sir John Trevelyan possesses the molars of a large Elephant from 

 gravel in the bed of the Severn, near Watchet, and we have long 

 known that the bones of Elephants occur in great abundance in the 

 oyster grounds off Yarmouth. 



In subterranean Ornithology three important discoveries have been 

 made during the past year ; the first in the Eocene formation by 

 Professor Owen, who has recognised the fossil Vulture before alluded 

 to in the London clay of Sheppy ; the second, by Lord Cole and 

 Sir P. Egerton, who have acquired from the chalk of Kent the hu- 

 merus of a bird most like that of an Albatross, but of larger and 

 longer dimensions ; the third by Professor Agassiz, who has found 

 in Switzerland a nearly entire skeleton of a small bird (not unlike 

 a Swallow), at Claris, in the indurated blue slate beds of the lower 

 region of the chalk formation. We know that the bones of a Wader, 

 larger than a Heron, have been found by Mr. Mantell in the Weal- 

 den formation of Tilgate Forest ; and that the Ornithichnites in the 

 New Red Sandstone of Connecticut have been referred to seven 

 species of birds. 



We have an interesting accession to our knowledge of the ana- 

 tomy of the Ichthyosaurus in Mr. Owen's description of the hinder fin 

 of an Ichthyosaurus communis, discovered at Barrow-on-Soar by 

 Sir Philip Egerton; this fin distinctly exhibits on its posterior margin 

 the remains of cartilaginous rays that bifurcate as they approach 

 the edge of the fin, showing in this respect a new approximation to 

 the fin of a fish, and more fully justifying the propriety of the name 

 Ichthyosaurus. Traces are also preserved of scutiform compart- 

 ments on the integument of the fin. It is singular that this struc- 

 ture should never have been observed in any of the numerous spe- 



