WEALDEN CROCODILES. 535 



of such vacuity. The houiologues of the ' pterygo-maxillary vacuities ' are much reduced 

 in size, are external and posterior to the ' interpterygoid ' openings, and are exclusively 

 formed by the pterygoid and ectopterygoid, which, uniting externally to those openings 

 as well as internally, are interposed between the maxillary and the ' pterygo-maxillary 

 vacuity.' Von Meter, as usual, puts no figures or letters of reference upon the bones 

 and orifices, nor refers thereto by means of such symbols in his text. 



Assuming, however, that the usually careful and accurate delineator of fossil 

 specimens has correctly represented the palatal characters of his Bdodon Kapjji, it 

 offers the nearest resemblance to the characters of that part of the skull of 

 Hjjiaochampsa. 



In the proportion of this part of the skeleton of the Wealden Crocodile transmitted to 

 me by Mr. Fox an extent of three inches of the hinder part of the bony palate is preserved 

 (PL 60, fig. 25). In this extent four vacuities are more or less completely shown ; they 

 are in two pairs. Of the medial pair (PI. CO, fig. 25, «, i) the left is entire, and the 

 right lacks but a small part of its antcro-external border ; of the lateral pair (ib., y, y) the 

 left wants a part of its antero-external border ; but of the right, only a small part of the 

 inner and hinder border is preserved. 



The left pterygoid (24) is entire in its relations to the above vacuities, only the postero- 

 lateral branch (answering to a, figs. 6 and 7) being broken off. The external branch 

 (figs. 25, 6, 7, c), extends as usual, outward and forward to articulate with the ectopterygoid 

 (ib., ib., 25) ; this abuts by its outer end against the hinder end of the maxillary (ib., ib., 

 21) and the contiguous part of the malar (ib., ib., 26), the fore part of the pterygoid (24) 

 bounding with the ectopterygoid the hinder half of the pterygo-maxillary vacuity (y). The 

 fore part of the pterygoid, continued along the inner border of that vacuity, articulates 

 with the palatine (20), which, with the maxillary (21), completes the fore part of the 

 boundary of y. We have thus the homologue of the 'great palatal opening ' of Cuvier,^ 

 and of the ' posterior palatal opening ' of Eudes-Deslongchamps in the Teleosaurus 

 cadomemis"" which answers to the vacuity y in the Lacerfians, figs. 6 and 7, PI. 60. 



The medial pair of openings (PI. 60, fig. 25, «, s), bounded externally by the 

 palatines and pterygoids, and internally, as it seems, by medial processes of the same 

 bones, answer to the 'fosse pterygoidienne' (vi) of Eudes-Deslongchamps in Teleosaurus 

 temporalis^ and to the ' fosse nasale posterieure ' of Cuvier in the Teleosaurus cadomensis} 

 But in H^laochawpsa this pterygoid fossa, or posterior nostril, is divided by so strong a 

 longitudinal bony bar that the pair of vacuities might be taken at first sight to answer to 

 the ' grands trous palatins ' in the Crooodilus rhombifer} 



1 'Ossemen's Fossiles,' torn, cit., p. 133, pi. vii, fig. 4, r. 

 " ' Notes Paleontologiques,' p. 139, pi. xi, fig. 3, vii. 

 3 lb., ib., pi. xii, fig. 10, vii. 

 * Tom. cit., p. 133, pi. vii, fig. 4. 



5 Marked ^ in fig. 2 of plate iii of the ' Ossemens Fossiles,' torn, cit., and marked y in 'Anat. of 

 Vertebrates,' torn, cit., p. 15/, fig. 98, c. 



b6 



