212 
~~ 
DESCRIPTION OF REPTILES. 
b 
of about ten feet in length ; but differing in their greater length as compared with 
their breadth, in the inferior position and uniform convexity of the diapophysis 
(tubercle supports which the rib), in the minor transverse extent of the zygapo- 
physes (external and inferior articular processes) both at the front and back part 
of the vertebra, in the production of the posterior ridges extending from the 
neural spine to the posterior zygapophyses backwards into angular processes, 
and in other characters. For the distinct genus and species of Serpent thus in- 
dicated, the name of Paleophis toliapicus was proposed. 
I have since received a vertebra of this species from Sheppey, of larger size 
than those figured in the above-cited memoir, and indicating a serpent of twelve 
or fourteen feet in length. The under surface of another vertebra of the ordinary 
size from Sheppey (fig. 15), but more perfect than the specimen figured in the 
original Memoir, was carinate along the middle, the keel being produced poste- 
riorly into a low compressed tubercle, close to the articular ball, not separated 
therefrom by a smooth, flat tract, as in the existing Boas and Pythons. 
In the ‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ for September 1841, I 
recorded the occurrence of smaller vertebra of a Pal@ophis, indicating a species 
of about seven feet in length, found fossil in the eocene sand at Kyson in Suf- 
folk, and at the same time the discovery by Mr. Dixon of fossil vertebree ‘‘ of a 
distinct species of Paleophis from the eocene clay at Bracklesham, corresponding 
in size with those of a Boa constrictor of upwards of twenty feet in length.” (p. 2.) 
A mutilated specimen of one of these vertebre is given in Tab. XII. fig. 14; but 
since this was figured Mr. Dixon has obtained more perfect examples of the 
great Paleophis of Bracklesham, from which I have selected the specimens 
represented in the woodcut, p. 213, figs. 1, 2 & 3, to illustrate its specific differ- 
ences, independently of size, from the Paleophis toliapicus, figs. 14 & 15, p. 216, as 
well as from the existing Boa Constrictors and Pythons, which all show the type 
of vertebra represented in the figures 4, 5 & 6, p. 213, of the great Python Seba. 
If the ophidian vertebre from Bracklesham be compared with those from 
Sheppey, it will be seen, that although the anterior articular concavity (c, c) is of 
equal size in the same-sized specimens, and the prezygapophyses (ze) have the 
same restricted transverse development characteristic of the genus Paleophis, yet 
the breadth of the conjoined bases of the epizygapophyses (z7) is broader, and 
the depth of the interval between these and the prezygapophyses (ze) is greater in 
the Bracklesham species (Paleéophis Typheus). The vertebre of the Pal. Typheus 
(fig. 3) are shorter in proportion to their breadth and height than in the Pal. 
toliapicus (fig. 14), and the under surface of the vertebrae of both the Pal. Ty- 
