Mr. J. C. Pearce on the Embryo of an Ichthyosaurus. 45 



downwards in the quarry, I removed the clay with great care and 

 exposed to view an Ichthyosaurus communis ? about eight and a 

 half feet long, lying on its back in the highest state of preserva- 

 tion, and with the exception of a slight dislocation in the middle 

 of the tail and the deficiency of its point, every part is most per- 

 fectly preserved. In cautiously lifting the lamins&of clay between 

 the two hinder paddles, my attention was first arrested by a series 

 of small vertebrae lying on three or four of the posterior ribs ; on 

 removing another portion of the clay, ribs, the rami of the jaw, 

 and the other parts of the head were visible. In carefully clean- 

 ing this delicate little skeleton, it was found to rest on black, 

 finely corrugated integument, which is preserved around the 

 small skeleton, and passes underneath the posterior ribs and 

 some other parts of the large animal. 



The little animal, somewhat dislocated, lies at full length in the 

 cavity of the pelvis, with its head towards the tail of the large 

 one, and rests on the internal surface of its integument, and on 

 the internal surfaces of three of its posterior left ribs, and is about 

 five and a half inches long. The rami of the jaw and one of the 

 longest ribs (of which only five or six are discernible) are each 

 about an inch long ; and of the thirty vertebrae which can be 

 counted, the largest is the eighth of an inch in its longest dia- 

 meter. It is bounded on either side by the ilium, ischium and 

 pubis, and by the right and left posterior paddles, and on the right 

 side by the vertebral column and right ribs ; and while the poste- 

 rior two-thirds of the little animal is within the pelvis, the head 

 appears to protrude beyond it, and apparently in the act of being 

 expelled at the time of death. v «,;i ./ 



So singular a circumstance as the embryo being found dn the 

 pelvis of its parent in a fossil state, should lead to the greatest 

 care in arriving at such a conclusion; but when we consider 

 that the large animal was developed on its under surface — conse- 

 quently it is nothing that has fallen upon it — and the remarkably 

 correct position of the little skeleton in the pelvis, between the 

 right and left ribs, with its head protruding, and the little ver- 

 tebrae so exactly corresponding in shape to the lai'ge ones, and 

 the other bones resembling those of a Saurian, it appears fair to 

 conclude that it cannot be anything else but a {c^tsl Ichthyosaurus ; 

 and if it be suggested that it may have been swallowed by the 

 animal, this involves a much greater difficulty; for so delicate a 

 structure would have been dissolved by the gastriq, jujipe^.^^^nd 

 could not have reached its present position, <j .y^ , ■, ^ ,, ) | yjT 



The Rev. Dr. Buckland and Professor Owen, who have W^ly 

 written me on the subject, state, that there is no reason why the 

 Ichthyosaurus should not be viviparous, although " analogy of the 



