"glofe on a (SlJeL'ontcut 

 from tBe "gfurBecft JSe6s of 



By A. SMITH WOODWARD, LL.D., F.R.S. 



IT LTHOUGH remains of the shells of turtles are 

 very common in the Purbeck Beds of 

 Swanage, only one skull appears to have 

 been hitherto met with. 1 The recent dis- 

 covery of a skull is therefore of much 

 interest and worthy of a brief notice. This 

 specimen was obtained from a Swanage 

 quarryman by Sir J. C. Robinson, who 

 presented it to the Dorset County Museum 

 in December, 1908. 



The new fossil, shown of the natural size on the accom- 

 panying plate, is flattened by crushing and exposed from above. 

 Its snout is bluntly pointed, and the rather small orbits (orb,} are 

 far forwards. The temporal fossoe have a complete and extensive 

 roof. The supra-occipital (soc.\ which just appears in the cranial 

 roof, does not project further backwards than the squamosal 

 region on each side. Owing to fractures by crushing most of 



1 E. Lydekker, "Catalogue of the Fossil Reptilia in the British Museum," 

 pt. iii. (1889), p. 204. 



