WEALDEN DINOSAURS. 329 



Order— BINOSJ USIA. 



Genus — Megalosauuus,* Bucldand. 

 Denies laniarii, subcompressi, marginibus minute serratis. 



The order or group of Dinosaurian Reptiles, briefly characterised in the preceding 

 division of the present chapter,! includes at least three well-established genera, 

 resembling each other in having a large and complex sacrum, composed of five or 

 more anchylosed vertebrae ; in the height, breadth, and outward sculpturing of the 

 neural arch of the dorsal vertebrae ; in the twofold articulation of the ribs, or some 

 of the anterior moveable ribs, to the vertebrae ; and in having broad, and sometimes 

 complex coracoids, and long and slender clavicles ; whereby a Lacertian type of the 

 pectoral arch is combined with a crocodilian type of the true vertebrae, and both 

 with an ornithic type of sacrum. 



These remarkable extinct Dinosaurs were of large, if not gigantic, size ; with the 

 trunk lifted, higher than in other reptiles, upon four unusually developed limbs ; the 

 principal bones of which are remarkable for the prominence and number of the 

 apophyses relating to muscular attachments, for the size of the medullary cavity, and 

 for the density of its compact bony wall : the limbs are terminated by metacarpal or 

 metatarsal, and by phalangeal bones, which, with the exception of the ungual phalanges, 

 more or less resemble those of the horny pachydermal mammals, and attest, with the 

 hollow long bones, the terrestrial habits of the species. 



Of these gigantic D'momuria the most formidable was that which its discoverer, that 

 keen observer and original thinker, the Rev. Dr. Buckland, has called " Megalosaurus,!" 

 in reference to the idea of its hugeness, which was suggested to both him and Baron Cuvier 

 by certain of its limb-bones. '"' Si Ton pouvait donner," writes Cuvier, " le nom de Lacerta 

 gigantea a un autre animal qu'a celui de Maestricht, c'estl'espece actuelle qui le meriterait; 

 son seul femur, long de trente-deux pouces anglais ou 0805 ; annoncerait, en lui suppo- 

 sant les proportions d'un Monitor, une longueur totale de plus de quarante-cinq pieds de 

 roi, et meme, s'il y a de ces femurs de quatre pieds et plus, comme on I'a dit, sa 

 longueur serait encore plus etonnante."§ 



* Meyas, great, traiipns, lizard. 



-f Page 275. 



I See 'Transactions of the Geological Society of London,' 4to, vol. i, 2d ser., pt. 2, 1824. 



§ 'Ossemens Fossiles,' 4to, vol. v, pt. 2, p. 343. 



2 a 



