Kansas Mosasaurs. 



BY S. W. WILLISTON. 



PART II*. 



RESTORATION OF CLIDASTES, WITH PLATE III. 



In this Quarterly, vol. I, page 15, was given a description, by 

 Mr. E. C. Case and the writer, of an unusually complete specimen of 

 a Mosasaur from western Kansas, referred to Clidastes velox Marsh. 

 During the past )ear careful drawings have been made, not only in 

 this genus, but also in the other genera of the Kansas Mosasaurs, of 

 the skull and other parts of the skeleton. In the accompanying plate, 

 pen and ink copies of two of these have been reproduced, together 

 with a restoration of the skeleton of Clidastes velox. 



The first known specimen of this interesting group of reptiles was 

 exhumed by Hofmann, an army surgeon, from an underground quarry 

 near Maestricht, in 1789. The owner of the ground lying over the 

 quarry, however, obtained possessions of the highly prized bones by 

 process of law. At the siege of Maestricht by the French, in i 795, it 

 is said that the cannoneers were instructed to avoid firing into that 

 part of the town where the specimen was supposed to be. At the 

 capitulation, the specimen had been hidden, but was recovered by a 

 bribe of six hundred bottles of wine, and taken to Paris, where it was 

 studied by Cuvier. 



Since that time, numerous incomplete specimens of these animals 

 have been discovered, in Europe, North America, and New Zealand, 

 and many species and genera have been described, but no restoration, 

 save a conjectural one by Cope, has been attempted. The present 

 restoration is in nowise conjectural; it is based wholly upon the single 

 specimen mentioned above, which includes all parts of the skeleton, 

 with the exception of some of the finger and toe bones, whose absence 

 is indicated by dotted lines in the drawing. In the ar.angement of 

 the ribs a natural skeleton of Iguaua tubcrciilata has been followed by 

 the artist; otherwise the restoration has been made from the fossil 

 bones. For a description of the osteology, the reader is referred, for 

 the present, to the above-cited paper. The writer has begun the 



*For part I, see this Quarterly, vol. I. p. 15, July, 1892. 



(83) KAN. UNIV. QUAB., VOL. II, NO. 2, OCT., 18113, 



