294 



nas and salamanders lengthwise on the posterior ; many fishes, such as 

 the pike, salmon, and genus Gadus, have them also lengthwise. This 

 circumstance had somewhat misled P. Camper and M. Van Marum. 

 Comparison will, however, show that the bones in the fossil animal in 

 which these teeth are implanted, resemble those of reptiles, and not 

 those of fishes. 



In the monitor and the iguana, the bone which M. Geoffrey calls the 

 posterior palatine, and which M. Cuvier considers as the internal ptery- 

 goidai apophysis, is not, as in the crocodile, united with the sphenoidal 

 bone, nor enlarged into a large triangular plate. It is here a bone 

 with four branches, one of which extends forwards, and unites with the 

 anterior palatine; the second passes to the side, to join the bore called, 

 by M. Geoffroy, the alar bone, which unites itself with the superior 

 maxillary bone; the third rests, by a surface covered by a cartilage, on 

 an apophysis of the base of the skull ; and, lastly, the fourth extends back- 

 wards, and gives attachment to muscles, but does not articulate with any 

 bone. 



It is on the inner edge of the anterior branch that the series of teeth is 

 implanted which distinguish the iguana. The anolis has this bone wider 

 in all its parts, and the posterior branch shorter, but it in other respects 

 resembles that of the iguana. In the monitors, on the contrary, all the 

 parts of this bone are narrower, and it is without teeth. 



Now, viewing the palate-bones of the fossil animal, all the parts are 

 directly seen, which have been just described as existing in the iguana. 

 The one which is in the upper part, k, I, m, is that of the right side. Its 

 external apophysis, o, is concealed, but the posterior, /, although broken 

 at the end, shows plainly that it must have been as long in proportion as 

 in the iguana. The other, o', k' y I', m', is that of the right side : it shows 

 the four apophyses very distinct. The chief specific difference whicli it 

 shows is, that the internal process m , is longer than in the iguana, or in 

 the monitor. Each of these bones, in the fossil animal, appears to have 



