DINOSAURIA 257 



and interesting fossil, have been noted, and will be given, with 

 the figures, in my History of British Fossil Eeptiles, for which 

 work Mr. Duff has kindly consented to place the specimen at 

 my disposal. In the meanwhile, I beg to offer the above precis 

 of the main characters of the fossil. — Richard Owen." 



Other palaeontologists regarded the fossil as a batrachian 

 reptile ; but no evidence, osteological or dental, has been 

 pointed out in support of this view.* 



With regard to the geological age of the calcareous sand- 

 stone containing Staganolepis and L&ptophuron, the author has 

 remarked, in the article " Palaeontology," when the belief of 

 some eminent geologists in the Devonian age of the stratum 

 is quoted — " As yet, however, no characteristic Devonian or 

 ' Old Eed ' fossils of any class have been discovered associated 

 with the foregoing evidences of reptiles, which, according to 

 the determination of strata by characteristic fossils, would 

 belong to the secondary or mezozoic period/'f It is, most 

 probably, of triassic age. 



Order VIII. — Dinosauria. 



Char. — Cervical and anterior dorsal vertebrae with par- and 

 di-apophyses, articulating with bifurcate ribs ; dorsal 

 vertebra? with a neural platform, sacral vertebra 3 ex- 



* The following notice of this determination of the fossil will be found in 

 the Athencenm of Dec. 13, in the title of a paper to he read at the ensuing 

 meeting of the Geological Society : — "Notice of the occurrence of Fossil Foot- 

 Tracks, and the Remains of a Batrachian Reptile, in the Old Red Sandstone of 

 Morayshire, by Capt. Brickenden and Dr. Mantell." The belief in the antiquity 

 of the stratum showing the impression of the skeleton — remains of the skeleton 

 there are none — appears to have weighed with these gentlemen in placing the 

 animal at the bottom of the air-breathing series of vertebrals. as well as in pro- 

 posing for it the name of Telerpe.ton, or "last of reptiles;" (re\os, the end or 

 issue of a thing, or reKeios, having reached its end, and epirerov, a reptile), at least 

 as traced backwards in time. The term Leptopleuroii has, however, the priority 

 of publication : being also the result of a truer exposition of the nature and 

 affinities of the fossil, and free from the signification of its appearance in time, 

 it will be, probably, preferred. 



f Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. xxii., p. L30. 



S 



