124 BRITISH FOSSIL REPTILES. 



cuneifoi'm, hollow-based, superiorly ridged dermo-neurals, with dimensions 

 making three occupy the space of five vertebrEe along the base of the tail, and 

 nearly seven vertebra} along the hinder half of the tail. There was a corresponding 

 median series of smaller and less vertically extended dermo-haemal bones, and also 

 a single series of dermo-laterals, of more depressed and fuller ovate form, on each 

 side. 



The accidents attending the decomposition of the carcass of this reptile seem to 

 have had the chief share in the removal and displacement of so large a proportion 

 of its coat of mail. Subsequent cosmical violence has been concerned in the fracture, 

 the crushing, and in a certain amount of displacement of the constituent parts of 

 the skeleton. Lastly, further fracture of the fossil bones has been due to the 

 quarrying operations, by which the specimen was brought to light. 



A few remains, including a femur, 5 inches in length, but with both extremities 

 seemingly incompletely ossified, indicated a young Dinosaur ; and with characters, 

 as of the inner trochanter, in regard to shaj^e and relative position, which led me 

 to surmise that it might be part of an immature and very young individual of a 

 Scelidosaurus. These remains were from the same liassic locality as the larger, 

 probably adult bones. 



To whatever extent the Saurian organization has been modified for terrestrial 

 life, that has been, in no instance, such as to suggest an inability to swim. On 

 the contrary, the disproportionate shortness of the fore limbs, even in Iguanodon, 

 leads to the suspicion that they might be short in reference to diminishing the 

 obstacles to propelling the body through water by actions of the strong and 

 vertically extended tail; and that, as in the living land lizard (AmUyrhynchus), of 

 the Gallopagos Islands, the fore limbs might be applied close to the trunk in the 

 Iguanodon, when it occasionally sought the water of the neighbouring estuary or 

 sea. One would suppose that the newly born or newly hatched young of a Dinosaur 

 might be safer on shore than at sea, or at least in waters which, like those of the 

 Liassic ocean, seem to have swarmed with carnivorous Bnaliosaurus. If the 

 Dinosauria were ovo-viviparous, and jDroduced but few young at a birth, the remains 

 from the lower Lias, noticed at p. 90, might be those of a foetus borne by a gravid 

 Scelidosaur to sea during an occasional excursion, and which by some casualty had 

 there perished, and become imbedded, with her progeny, in the muddy bottom of 

 the old Liassic ocean. I have not, however, been able to obtain precise evidence 

 of the proximity of the small femur with the larger one of the Scelidosaurus, and 

 bones of more than one small individual might have been expected to occur in 

 juxtaposition if they had perished before birth. The analogy of the crocodile, 

 moreover, would lead us to expect that the newly excluded or newly born Scelido- 

 saur would be of smaller size than the individual indicated by the bones first 

 discovered. 



