WEALDEN CROCODILES. 401 



In the collection of fossils of the late Mr. Saull, F.G.S., now in the Museum of the 

 Literary Institution, Aldersgate Street, London, there is a cervical vertebra of 

 Streptospondyhm major, associated, as in the Mantellian Collection, with vertebrae of 

 the Iguanodon and Cetiosaurus, all of which have been washed out of the submarine 

 Wealden beds at the south side of the Isle of Wight, and thrown on shore near Culver 

 Cliffs and Brook Point. 



The lower half of the sides of the centrum of this vertebra of the Streptospondijlus 

 are, like the preceding vertebra from Tilgate, concave and obliquely compressed, so as 

 to converge to the anterior part of tlie under surface (PI. 32, fig. 2), which thus presents 

 a triangular form, with the apex forming the obtuse anterior ridge (/;), and the base 

 turned backward and becoming somewhat flattened. Each lateral concavity is bounded 

 above by a short but broad parapophysis (ii). p), developed from the anterior half of that 

 part of the centrum, and terminated by an oblong flattened surface for the articulation 

 of the head of the cervical rib ; which svuface is about twice as long in the antero- 

 posterior as the vertical direction. Above this process the centrum is again concave, 

 but there is no pit or defined cavity behind its process. The base of the neurapophysis 

 is anchylosed to nearly the whole antero-posterior extent of the centrum, the course 

 of the original straight suture being, however, discernible. A diapophysis is developed 

 from the side of the base of the neurapophysis, affording a broader surface for the 

 tubercle of the cervical rib than does the parapophysis for the head. Above the 

 diapophysis the neurapophyses converge obliquely to the base of the spinous process. 

 The line of the base of the spine inclines forward, and the thickness of the spine 

 diminishes in the same direction. The posterior zygapophyses in the cervical vertebra 

 from Culver Cliff, are similar in all respects to those in the Tilgate specimen, and 

 equally determine the fore and hind extremities of the vertebra. 



The difference in the height of the neui-al arch, and in the configuration of its 

 external surface, which both the cervical vertebrae of the great Wealden Strepto- 

 spondijlus present, when compared with the dorsal vertebrae of the smaller species 

 from the older oolitic formations,* is very great; and the more remarkable, as in the 

 existing Crocodiles the height of the neurapophyses is greater in the cervical than in the 

 dorsal region. Since, however, the diapophyses in the Crocodiles come off from a higher 

 part of the neural arch in the dorsal than in the cervical vertebra', the spine of the 

 great Wealden Slreptospondi/his may possibly present modifications in the dorsal 

 region corresponding with those remarkable ones which Cuvier has described in the 

 vertebrae from Honfieur. 



A more posterior cervical vertebra of Streptospondi/hs major (No. 28,.'")08, British 

 Museum), from the submerged Wealden beds at Brook Point, Isle of Wight, shows 

 that these vertebrae increase in height as they recede from the head. 



* Streptospondylus Cuvieri, ' Ossemeiis Fossiles,' torn, cit., p. 308, pi. ccx.xsvi. 



