36 FOSSIL REPTILES OF DORSET. 



attacks of the carnivores of that date ; when standing upright 

 above the reeds and grass it could command a view of what 

 was going on around, and either escape by flight, or boldly 

 meet the enemy by attacking it with the strong piercing spurs 

 with which its fore-feet were armed. Dissociated remains as 

 well as foot-prints have been recovered in the Wealden beds of 

 Swanage and Worbarrow. The Iguanodon Mantellii in the 

 Brussels Museum, which is in almost an upright position, stands 

 1 2 feet 6 inches. 



GENUS SCELIDOSAURUS, Owen. 



SCELIDOSAURUS HARRISONII, Owm. 



One of the characteristic features of this species is the short 

 proportion of the skull posterior to the orbits, which are subcircular, 

 nearly vertical, and prominent ; in these respects it resembles the 

 Crocodile. The teeth of the upper jaw overlap and conceal those of 

 the lower ; they are small, numerous, and close-set, and, implanted in 

 sockets, there were no less than nineteen in a portion of the 

 upper jaw, measuring four inches. The crowns of the front-teeth, 

 which are compressed and serrate, are coated with polished enamel of 

 jet blackness, and worked obliquely with those of the lower-jaw, 

 scissor-like. The sacrum consists of four vertebrae, the neck of six 

 or seven, the dorsal of sixteen, and the lumbar of one. The total 

 length is about five feet ; the tail, which is five feet eight 

 inches, has thirty-five vertebrae; allowing one foot for the head, 

 the total length of the animal is twelve feet. The fifth toe of the 

 hind foot is abortive, and the first is disproportionately short, 

 showing a tendency to the tridactyle type of the hind-foot, and 

 which is completed in its Wealden successor, the Iguanodon. The 

 foot of Scelidosaurus, which is thirteen inches six lines long, 

 would leave an impression of four claws ; the length of the tibia is 

 twelve inches, of the femur sixteen inches, or the total length of the 

 hind lirrib three feet four inches. From the Lower Lias of Lyme 

 Regis. 



