232 PETRIFACTIONS AND THEIR TEACHINGS. CHAP. III. 



arduous professional duties in a provincial town remote from 

 museums and libraries of natural history, forbade the hope 

 of speedily acquiring more satisfactory information, I trans- 

 mitted to the Eoyal Society, through my friend Davies 

 Gilbert, Esq., figures and descriptions of the most illustra- 

 tive specimens, adopting (at the suggestion of the Rev. 

 W. D. Conybeare) the name of Iguanodon for the extinct 

 reptile, to indicate the resemblance between the fossil teeth 

 and those of the recent Iguana, which Mr. Stuchbury's spe- 

 cimen had enabled me to ascertain. 1 



THE IGUANA. It may tend to render our remarks on 

 the structure and economy of the Iguanodon more easily com- 

 prehended by the unscientific visitor, if we preface those 

 osteological details which the palaeontologist will consider 

 indispensable, and without which, indeed, the results that are 

 of general interest could never have been obtained, by a few 

 observations on the nature and habits of the recent lizard, 

 the resemblance of whose teeth to those of the colossal her- 

 bivorous reptile of the Wealden suggested the name so 

 familiar to my readers, and by which that extraordinary 

 creature of the secondary ages is now generally known. 



The Iguanas are land-lizards which inhabit many parts of 

 America and the West Indies, and are rarely met with north 

 or south of the tropics. They are from three to five feet in 

 length, and are perfectly harmless, feeding on insects and 

 vegetables, and climbing trees in quest of the tender leaves 

 and buds, which they chip off and swallow whole. 2 They 

 nestle in the hollows of rocks, and deposit their eggs, which 

 are like those of turtles, in the sands and banks of rivers. 



The dental organs of the Iguana consist of a single row in 

 each jaw of very small, closely-set, pointed teeth with serrated 

 edges, which are not implanted in distinct sockets, but are 



1 " Notice on the Iguanodon, a newly discovered fossil reptile, from 

 the sandstone of Tilgate Forest, in Sussex." Philos. Trans. 1825. 

 This memoir was printed before the fifth volume of Baron Cuvier's 

 " Oss. Foss." (in which the teeth are figured and described, and men- 

 tion is made of my discoveries in Tilgate Forest,) had reached this 

 country. See APPENDIX F. 



2 Stuffed specimens of the recent Iguanas are exhibited in that part 

 of the Zoological Gallery approached from Room III. by the entrance 

 between Cases C and D 



