100 BRITISH FOSSIL REPTILES. 



being readied, the dermal bones in contact with it were left, save where tliey 

 concealed some joint, process, or other light-giving or characteristic part of the 

 framework. In the coiu"se of these operations it soon became evident that the 

 whole vertebral column, in a series of consecutive and but slightly disturbed and 

 mostly coarticulated segments, from the axis to the thirty-fourth caudal vertebrae 

 inclusive, had been raised from their place of deposit ; all the parts, save the 

 centrum and a small and low coalesced neural arch, having ceased to be developed, 

 in the terminal caudal vertebrse, the last of whicb in the recovered series was reduced 

 to dimensions so small as to indicate that but very few remained to complete the 

 tail of the Scelidosaur. The first vertebra of the neck was adherent to the back 

 part of the skull above described. 



Of the liassic masses following that which included the skull the first four 

 contained twenty vertebrae, extending from the axis to the mass including the 

 sacrum, and they were clearly consecutive save at one part of tbe neck. 



The back part of the mass containing the skull includes the atlas vertebra in 

 connection with the occiput, and surmounted by a pair of dermal bones (PI. 48, fig. 

 1, (In). The block whicb fits to the fractured surface including the body and tbe 

 neurapophyses of the atlas contains the axis and third cervical vertebra. The 

 next piece revealed one neai'ly entire cervical vertebra (ib., figs. 3 and 4) and part 

 of a second vertebra. The third, larger, piece included ten coarticulated vertebrae 

 (Pis. 49, 50), but the continuity of the fore part of this mass with the last mentioned 

 could not be clearly made out. The fourth block fits to that containing the ten 

 dorsals, and included the five consecutive vertebrae with part of a sixth (PI. 51). 

 The block which contains the sacrum has also two vertebrjB in advance of it (PI. 53), 

 part of the first of which lies in the preceding block. 



Thus there was evidence of at least twenty-two "true " vertebrte; but there 

 may have been one or two vertebrae from the region of the neck which had not 

 been recovered. The vertebra attached to the first sacral seems not to have sup- 

 ported ribs : the one in front of it has a pair of long, freely articulated ribs, and may 

 be reckoned the last dorsal. Including this, there may be assigned sixteen vertebrae 

 to the dorsal series, if we include therein the ten vertebrae in PL 49, leaving sLxor 

 seven to the cervical series. The lumbar series seems thus reduced to one vertebra. 

 The sacrum includes four vertebrae. Of the caudal series thirty-five vertebrae 

 were preserved, in five consecutively fitting blocks of matrix, leaving parts of two 

 terminal ones, so small and simple as to show that very few are wanting in the 

 present fossil skeleton. 



The modifications of the spinal column of the trunk and tail of the Scelidosaur 

 could thus be studied and compared in sixty consecutive vertebra of one and the 

 same individual. 



The fracture of the matrix including the skull has passed thi'ough the ceu- 



