Geological Society. 493 
wholly unlike those of the Megatherium, and most nearly resemble 
those of Dasypus, but are short broad and flat, and seem to have 
been covered with hoof-like claws. The form of the foot most 
nearly resembled that of the fore foot of the Mole. Having ap- 
propriated to the Glyptodon the armour supposed to belong to 
the Megatherium, Mr. Owen next proves that the latter animal was 
unprovided with any such bony covering, arguing from a compari- 
son of its vertebral column and pelvis with that of the Armadillo ; 
and from the absence of the oblique processes, which in the lori- 
eated Edentata resemble as to form and use the te-bearers in 
carpentry, that support the weight of a roof. The vertebral con- 
ditions of the Megatherium are nearer to those of the Sloths and 
Ant-eaters. We have accounts of twelve skeletons of Megatherium, 
not one of which was found to be accompanied by bony armour. 
Cuvier considered the Megatherium more nearly allied to the Ant- 
eaters and Sloths than to the Armadillos. 
Captain Martin has found that many parts of the bottom of the 
English Channel and German Ocean contain in deep water the 
bones and tusks of Elephants. They have been dredged up be- 
tween Boulogne and Dungeness, in the mid-sea between Dover and 
Calais, and at the back of the Goodwin Sands; also mid way between 
Yarmouth and the coast of Holland. In 1837 a fisherman enclo- 
sed in his net a vast mass of bones between the two shoals called 
Varn and Ridge, that form a line of submarine chalk-hills between 
Dover and Calais. Captain Martin says these bones do not occur 
on the top of banks or shoals, but in deep hollows or marine valleys. 
Sir John Trevelyan possesses the molars of a large Elephant from 
gravel in the bed of the Severn, near Watchet, and we have long 
known that the bones of Elephants occur in great abundance in the 
oyster grounds off Yarmouth. 
In subterranean Ornithology three important discoveries have been 
made during the past year; the first_in the Eocene formation by 
Professor Owen, who has recognised the fussil Vulture before alluded 
to in the London clay of Sheppy ; the second, by Lord Cole and 
Sir P. Egerton, who have aequired from the chalk of Kent the hu- 
merus of a bird most like that of an Albatross, but of larger and 
longer dimensions; the third by Professor Agassiz, who has found 
ia Switzerland a nearly entire skeleton of a small bird (not unlike 
a Swallow), at Glaris, in the indurated blue slate beds of the lower 
region of the chalk formation. We know that the bones of a Wader, 
larger than a Heron, have been found by Mr. Mantell in the Weal- 
den formation of Tilgate Forest ; and that the Ornithichnites in the 
New Red Sandstone of Connecticut have been referred to seven 
species of birds. 
We have an interesting accession to our knowledge of the ana- 
tomy of the Ichthyosaurus in Mr. Owen’s description of the hinder fin 
of an Ichthyosaurus communis, discovered at Barrow-on-Soar by 
Sir Philip Egerton; this fin distinctly exhibits on its posterior margin 
the remains of cartilaginous rays that bifurcate as they approach 
the edge of the fin, showing in this respect a new approximation to 
