WEALDEN DINOSAURS. 373 



IGUANODON. 



Supplement No. 1. 

 Restoration of the {Hind?) Foot. Plates 43 and 44. 



In a former part of the present history * the characteristic form of certain toe- 

 phalanges was described ; such phalanges, at least, were inferred to belong to the 

 Iguanodon, with a high degree of probability, on evidence of association with other 

 undoubted parts of the skeleton of that reptile, and more especially in the instance 

 of the Maidstone skeleton ;t but at that period the exact structure and number of toes 

 of either fore or hind foot were unknown. 



On the basis, however, of the determination of detached phalangeal bones in 

 pp. 316 — 318, the present restoration of an entire — probably hind — foot, the carpus 

 or tarsus excepted, of the Iguanodon, has been carried out ; the ungual phalanges in 

 the series of bones of this foot (Pis. 43 and 44) closely corresponding in shape with 

 the depressed and obtuse phalanges referred to that extinct animal in the above- 

 cited pages and plates. This most interesting and instructive framework of the foot 

 of the great Dinosaurian herbivorous reptile was, moreover, found in a formation and at 

 a locality where unequivocal vertebrae and other parts of the Iguanodon are common ; 

 so that I feel great confidence in the correctness of the present contribution towards 

 a complete reconstruction of the Iguanodon. 



The discovery and acquisition of the unique specimen, figured in Pis. 43 and 44, 

 are due to S. H. Beckles, Esq., F.G.S., the author of the papers on the ' Ornithoidich- 

 nites of the Weaklen,':}: and who first definitely called the attention of geologists to the 

 singular " trifid," or tridactyle impressions in the Wealden of Sussex, of which he was 

 the chief discoverer, and has been the most persevering investigator. 



It seems a peculiarly appropriate reward for these researches, that the acquisition 

 of the fossils demonstrating the tridactyle structure of one of the feet of the Iguanodon 

 should have been reserved for Mr. Beckles. These fossils, moreover, were not fortuitously 

 acquired, but were the fruit of special researches, assiduously carried on by Mr. 

 Beckles on the south-west coast of the Isle of Wight, with a view to materials for 

 completing our knowledge of the great Wealden reptiles. 



Between Brook and Brixton, in the submerged Wealden bed, near low-water mark, 

 indications of the entire skeleton of a young, perhaps half-grown, Iguanodon were 

 detected. The bones of the foot which were most within reach had been very little 



* Section iii, Ch. i, p. 31G, Pis. 21 and 22. f PP- 259, Dinosauria, Pis. 1 and 2. 



X 'Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,' January, 1851, and Noyember, 1852. 



