THE HISTORY OF SCLEROMOCPILUS TAYLORI 297 



stone. I afterwards secured the specimen for my own 

 collection, and carried it round among quarrymen and 

 stonebreakers to show it to them. I took it to the British 

 Museum, but nothing could be done with this obscure fossil. 

 About a year after, a better example was found by one of the 

 quarrymen who had seen the original specimen. I took this 

 one to London also, but the " new genus " was not yet 

 investigated. A few months later, casts of bones of a 

 scattered skeleton came to light, 



I sent word to Dr Smith Woodward that the new 

 one showed casts of some bones which had not been 

 seen before, and I induced him to take the matter up. 

 He lost no time in working it out, and describing it to 

 the Geological Society of London in 1907. The late 

 Professor Seeley, Mr E. T. Newton, and Dr Andrews took 

 part in the discussion as to its structure and affinities. It 

 was so unlike any known creature, that opinions differed 

 greatly as to its mode of life. One celebrated naturalist 

 said, " You need not look for feathers " ; another experienced 

 palaeontologist said he " saw nothing to prevent such a 

 creature having had some kind of feathers." Dr Smith 

 Woodward clearly demonstrated that it was related, 

 in general structure, to the slender, crocodile-shaped 

 Ornithosnchus woodwardi (E. T. Newton), also found in 

 the Elgin Trias. He compared it with other reptiles, and 

 showed how "the fore limbs are small and delicate, while the 

 hind limbs are very large, and evidently adapted for a 

 bipedal running or leaping gait," and that all its characters 

 show that it belongs to " a hitherto unknown genus, which 

 may be named Scleroviochbis (' hard fulcrum '), the type 

 species being the small Scleromochlus taylori now described." 

 He finishes his remarks on the creature by saying : " For a 

 geological period so remote as the Trias the high degree of 

 specialisation of this diminutive Dinosaur is truly astonish- 

 ing." Dr Woodward's paper contains fine drawings of 

 the fossils, and a restored dorsal view of the skeleton, in 

 which the shape of the skull, limbs, and tail are well shown. 

 During the past five years Scleromocldus has been studied by 

 Baron von Huene of Tubingen, and compared with other 

 46 2 1 



