901 



MOSASAURUS. 



MOSCHID^E. 



throughout the whole skeleton, with such deviations only as tendec 

 to fit the animal for its marine existence. 



" The Moaaaaurus had scarcely any character in common with the 

 Crocodile, but resembled the Iguanas in having an apparatus of teeth 

 fixed on the pterygoid bone, and placed in the roof of its mouth, as 

 in many serpents and fishes, where they act as barbs to prevent the 

 escape of their prey. 



" Tie other parts of the skeleton follow the character indicated by 

 the head. The vertebra are all concave in front and convex behind, 

 being fitted to each other by a ball and socket joint, admitting easy 

 and universal flexion. From the centre of the back to the extremity 

 of the tail they are destitute of articular apophyses, which are essentia! 

 to support the back of animals that move on land : in this respeci 

 they agree with the vertebrae of dolphins, and were calculated to 

 facilitate the power of swimming ; the vertebra; of the neck allowed 

 to that part also more flexibility than in the Crocodiles. 



" The tail was flattened on each side, but high and deep in the 

 vertical direction, like the tail of a crocodile, forming a straight oar 

 of immense strength to propel the body by horizontal movements 

 analogous to those of skulling. Although the number of caudal 

 vertebrae was nearly the same as in the Monitor, the proportionate 

 length of the tail was much diminished by the comparative shortness 

 of the body of each vertebra ; the effect of this variation being to give 

 strength to a shorter tail as an organ for swimming ; and a rapidity of 

 movement, which would have been unattainable by the long and slen- 

 der tail of the Monitor, which assists that animal in climbing. There 

 is a further provision to give strength to the tail, by the chevron bones 

 being soldered firmly to the body of each vertebra, as in fishes." 



The total number of vertebrae was 133, nearly the same as in the 

 Monitors, and moie than double the number of those in the Crocodiles. 

 The ribs had a single head, and were round, as in the family of Lizards. 

 Of the extremities sufficient fragments have been found to prove that 

 the Motatauriw, instead of legs, had four large paddles, resembling 

 those of the Pletiosaurut and the Whale : one great use of these was 

 probably to assist in raising the animal to the surface, in order to 

 breathe, as it apparently had not the horizontal tail by means of 

 which the CetOcea ascend for this purpose. All these characters unite 

 to show that the Mosataurus was adapted to live entirely in the water, 

 and that although it was of such vast proportions compared with the 

 living genera of these families, it formed a link intermediate between 

 the Monitors and the Iguanas. However strange it may appear to 

 find its dimensions so much exceeding those of any existing lizards, 

 or to find marine genera in the order of Saurians, iu which there 

 exuU at this time no species capable of living in the sea; it is scarcely 

 less strange than the analogous deviations iu the Megalosaurus and 

 lyuanodon, which afford examples of still greater expansion of the 

 type of the Monitor and Iguana into colossal forms adapted to move 

 upon the land. Throughout all these variations of proportions, we 

 trace the persistence of the same laws which regulate the formation 

 of living genera, and from the combinations of perfect mechanism 

 that have in all times resulted from their operation, we infer the 

 perfection of the wisdom by which all this mechanism was designed, 

 and the immensity of the power by which it has ever been 

 upheld. 



" Cuvier asserts of the Mosasaurue, that before he had seen a single 

 vertebra, or a bone of any of its extremities, he was enabled to 

 announce the character of the entire skeleton from the examination of 

 the jaws and teeth alone, and even from a single tooth. The power 

 of doing this results from those magnificent laws of co-existence 

 which form the basis of the science of comparative anatomy, and 

 which give the highest interest to its discoveries." 



Head at Ifotoiaunu Cumperi (Lacerta gigantea of Summering). 



The noble specimen from which the cut is taken was discovered in 

 1780, and is in the Museum at Paris. At the capture of Maastricht 

 by the French army it was given up to them for the purpose of being 

 placed in the museum, according to Cuvier, by Goddin, dean of the 

 chapter of that town, which, in virtue of some-droits of the chapter, 

 had taken it from Hoffman, of whose collection it formed the principal 

 feature. It is said th:it the French cannoneers had directions not to 

 point their artillery towards that part of the town in which this 

 precious specimen was deposited. 



A cast of the above specimen, presented by Barou Cuvier to 



Dr. Mantell, is now in the British Museum. In the same collection is 

 also part of a lower jaw of Mosasaurus, presented by Dr. Peter 

 Camper in 1784. There are also several vertebra found by Dr. Mantell 

 in the Chalk of Lewes. Casts are also preserved in the museums of 

 the Geological Society and of the Royal College of Surgeons. Teeth 

 in every respect similar to those found in the Maestricht reptile have 

 been discovered by Dr. Hurlan in Philadelphia, and other remains 

 of this animal have been found in the same district. 

 (Mantell, Fossils of the British Museum.) 



MOSCHATA. [ACTINIAE*] 



MO'SCHID^E, a family of Ruminant Quadrupeds familiarly known 

 as Musk-Deer. 



Linnseus defines the genus Moschm, which he places between Camelui 

 and Cenus, under his order Pecora, as having no horns, and the upper 

 cauine teeth solitary and exserted " Cornua nulla. Dentes Lam'arii 

 Superiores solitarii, exserti." 



Pennant, in the ' Systematic Index,' gives it nearly the same posi- 

 tion, the only difference being that the Deer precedes it, and the Camel 

 follows it. 



Cuvier, in his last edition of the ' Regne Animal,' gives it the same 

 position that Linnaeus assigned to it ; the Llamas (among the Camels) 

 immediately preceding it, and' the Deer (Cenus, Linn.) being next in 

 succession to it. The French zoologist states that the Musks are 

 much less anomalous than the Camels, and only differ from the other 

 Ruminants in the absence of horns, in having a long canine tooth on 

 each side of the upper jaw, which comes out of the mouth in the 

 males, and finally, iu having in their skeleton a slight fibula, which 

 has no existence in the Camels. He adds that they are charming 

 animals in regard to their elegance and lightness. The distinction of 

 the exserted upper canine tooth, noticed by Cuvier, is not confined to 

 the Musks; such a conformation exists in some of the males of the 

 Cervidce, the Munjak for instance. 



Mr. Swainsou is of opinion that the Moschida, or Musk-Deer, con- 

 stitute the most aberrant group of the Ruminants, and he places 

 them between the Oenidcs and the Camdopardce, the last family being 

 the terminating group of his fourth tribe, or Ruminants. 



M. F. Cuvier enumerates Moschus Moschiferus, M. Meminna, M. 

 pyymcew, M. Javanicua, and M. Napu, as the only species known at 

 present. 



Dr. J. E. Gray, in his ' Disposition of the Mammalia ' (' Annals of 

 Phil.,' 1825), divides the family Bovidte into two sections, the first 

 with persistent horns, and the second with either no horns or deciduous 

 horns. [BOVID.E.] He makes Moschina, the fourth sub-family, and 

 arranges it between Camelina and Cerv ina, in the second section. The 

 genera of Moschina, in this arrangement, are Mosckus and Meminna. 

 The same author, in June, 1836, read to the Zoological Society of 

 London some observations ' On the geim.s Moschus of Linnajus, with 

 descriptions of two new species.' He remarked that the only character 

 by which this genus, as established by Linmcus and others, differs 

 from the genus Genus, consists in the absence of horns; for the 

 elongated canines are common to it and most of the Indian species of 

 C'enus, especially the 0. Ifuntjac. [CERVID.*.] 



The character of the fur, the degree of hairiness or nakedness of the 

 metatarsus, and the presence or absence of the musk-bag of the male, 

 offer however, he observed, good characters for the sub-division of tho 

 jroup into three very distinct sections or sub-genera. 



The first of these divisions, for which Dr. Gray would retain' the 

 name of Moschus, comprehends only the Tibet Musk, M. Moschiferus, 

 Linn. In common with the Deer and Antelopes, it has, he pointed 

 out, the hinder and outer side of the metatarsus covered with close 

 erect hair, and, like many of the Deer also, its fur is quill-like and 

 brittle ; the throat moreover is entirely clothed with hair, and the 

 males are provided on the middle of the abdomen with a large pouch 

 secreting musk. Its young, like those of "most of the Deer, are 

 spotted, whilst the adult animal is plain-coloured. 



Dr. Gray further stated that the division to which, in the year 1821, 

 in a paper in the ' Medical Repository,' he gave the name of Meminna, 

 also consists of but a single species, the Moschus Meminna, Liun. In 

 -his group the hinder edge of the metatarsus is, he observed, covered 

 with hair ; and there is no musk-bag in either sex. The false hoofs, 

 IB remarked, are distinct, although Linntous and Buffon denied their 

 presence. 



The third and last sub-division is characterised by Dr. Gray, under 

 .he name of Tragulus, as having the hinder edge of the metatarsus 

 nearly bald and slightly callous, a character which distinguishes them 

 at once from all other Ruminants ; the fur is soft, and adpressed like 

 that of Meminna, but not spotted even when young ; the throat is 

 >rovided with a somewhat naked, concave, sub-glandular, callous 

 disc, placed between the rami of the lower jaw, from which a band 

 extends to the fore part of the chin ; and they have no musk-bag, 

 jike all the other species of the Linnaean genus Moschus, they have 

 'alse hoofs ; and most of them have the edges of the lower jaw, three 

 diverging bands on the chest, and the under surface of the body, more 

 or less purely white. The species of this division scarcely differ in 

 colour in the various stages of their growth, the young fawn resembling 

 e adult in every particular except in size. 



In this division, the synonymy of which is stated to be extremely 

 ;oufused, Dr. Gray reckons four species, two of which he describes as 



