138 BRITISH FOSSIL REPTILES. 



The ungual phalanges are dejoressed, smooth, and convex above, rounded at the 

 end. 



Dermal armour. — The bony dermal scutes of the Teleosaur were regularly 

 disposed like those of existing Crocodiles, in both longitudinal and transverse 

 series ; the posterior margin of' one scute covered the base of the succeeding scute,^ 

 and they slightly overlapped each other laterally. 



Cuvier states that one of the fossils of the Teleosaurus Cadomensis presents all 

 those of one side in their natural situation, exhibiting, in the part of the body 

 included between the first dorsal and the beginning of the tail, fifteen or sixteen 

 transverse ro-^s, containing five scutes on each side ; so that there were at least 

 ten longitudinal rows of these dermal bones. 



The scutes are arranged in the same manner and number, at least as regards the 

 transverse rows, in the Whitby Teleosaur ; these rows being indicated by the large 

 dorsal scutes still occupying their natural position in an uninterrupted line along 

 the back ; they are twenty in number, and sixteen cover the vertebra included 

 between the last cervical and first caudal (PL 15). 



The scutes of the Tel. Cliapnianni difi"er as much from those of the existing 

 Gavials and Crocodiles as do those of the Tel. Cadomensis, being thicker, rectan- 

 gular, and having the outer surface impressed with circular pits or indentations 

 from 3 to 4 lines in diameter which are not confluent, but separated. 



The median dorsal scutes of the Whitby specimen are nearly square, having 

 the longer diameter, about 3i inches across, placed transverse to the 

 axis of the body, and with the outer margin slightly rounded. Each of these 

 scutes is traversed, as in the Tel. ■priscus, by a longitudinal ridge, which is less 

 developed than in the Gavials. The median dorsal scutes of the Tel. Cado- 

 mensis and priscus appear to differ from those of the Tel. Ghapmanni iu being- 

 more oblong transversely, and with the posterior and lateral margins rounded 

 off". Cuvier does not allude to the carinated character of these plates in the Caen 

 species. 



The lateral and ventral scutes of the Tel. Chapmanni are more perfect squares 

 than those next the spine, but differ less in form and size from them than 

 in the Caen Teleosaur. They are marked externally by the same impressed pattern, 

 but are not carinated. The median abdominal scutes are not opposite but alter- 

 nate ; their median margins are rounded off, or slightly angular ; and, while the 

 anterior part of that margin is overlapped by the posterior half of the opposite 

 scute, in advance, the posterior half overlaps the succeeding scutum of the opposite 

 side. The verticillate cuirass of these ancient Crocodiles is thus securely braced 

 round the trunk by this interlocking of the inferior extremities of each ring 



• Cuv., 1. c.,p. 279. 



