Megalania, Owen, and Melolania, Owen. 87 



that Megalania prisca was truly terrestrial, with well-deve- 

 loped claws. 



Discoveries in a small island 200 miles from the Australian 

 coast next commanded attention. A number of fossil remains 

 from a superficial coral-sand formation in Lord Howe's Island, 

 transmitted to the British Museum by Robert D. Fitzgerald, 

 Esq., Surveyor-General, Sydney, New South Wales, were 

 soon found to comprise parts of an animal very similar to the 

 ])ossessor of the hoimed head and armoured tail already known 

 from a locality 400 miles distant in Queensland. Of these 

 specimens Sir Richard Owen* described and figured portions 

 of the skull and mandible, tail, and the (partly restored) 

 pelvis, besides briefly noticing an anterior vertebra, a portion 

 of the scapula, and a fragment of humerus. He concluded 

 that they belonged to a new subgenus — perhaps a new genus 

 — to be named Meiolania, comprising apparently two species, 

 M. platycejys and M. minor. Associated with the described 

 fossils, however, were numerous other fragments, which Mr. 

 William Davies had placed among the Chelonia; and the 

 whole were subsequently reexamined by Professor Huxley, 

 who arrived at the conclusion that they were all Chelonianf. 

 The animal was now considered to be most nearly allied to 

 Chelydra and Gypochelys [Macroclemmys) and other Crypto- 

 diran genera of that type ; and Mr. G. F. Bennett's Queens- 

 land skull and tail were unhesitatingly removed from their 

 association with the Megalanian vertebras \ and referred to 

 this new genus, for which Professor Huxley thought the 

 name of Ceratochelys would be more appropriate than that of 

 Meiolania. He also renamed Meiolania platyceps, Cerato- 

 chelys sthenurus. A new element was thus added to the 

 Reptilian fauna of Pleistocene Australia, the Cryptodiran 

 Chelonia being totally unrepresented there both at the present 

 day and among known fossils from the superficial deposits. 

 Still more satisfactory specimens of Meiolania platyceps after- 

 wards reached Sir Richard Owen, who again presented 

 descriptions to the Royal Society §, and concluded that the 



* R. Owen, " Description of Fossil Remains of two Species of a Mega- 

 lanian Genus (Meiolania) from Lord Howe's Island," Phil. Trans, 1886, 

 pp. 471-480, pis. xxix., xxs. 



t T. H. Huxley, " Preliminary Note on the Fossil Remains of a Clae- 

 lonian Reptile, Ceratochelys sthetiuinis, from Lord Howe's Islaud, Austra- 

 lia," Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. xlii. (1887), pp. 232-238. 



X All the vertebrfe found with Meiolania in Lord Howe's Island are 

 truly Chelonian and none like those named Megalania prisca have been 

 met with in this locality. 



§ R. Owen, " On Parts of the Skeleton of Meiolania plat yceps, Owen," 

 Abstract in Proc. Roy. Soc; vol. xlii. (1887), p. 297, The complete 

 memoir has not vet appeared. 



7* 



