122 REPORT 1861. 



know it in crocodiles and lizards, as adapted for life on land. The evidences as to 

 the order Dinosauria were first made known by the discoveries of Mantell and 

 Biickland, from examples found in this country. The remains had been foimd in 

 the upper preensand deposits of our cretaceous system, through the Wealden, 

 and (as regrarded the Megalosam-us) as far down as the great oolitic system ; but 

 until very recentlv that was the oldest formation from which any evidence of a 

 Dinosaiuian reptile had been the property of science. Mr. Harrison, a retired 

 medical gentleman residing at ChaiTnouth on the Dorset coast, near the maami- 

 ficent liassic clilis that had alTorded such rich evidences of marine reptUia. liad 

 devoted his leisure to the collection of fossil reniiiins from those clift's. About 

 three years ago, !Mr. Harrison obtained, from a part of the cliti' which was an upper 

 member, if not the uppermost, of the Lower Lias, some fragments of limb-boues of 

 so novel a character that he sent them to him (Professor Owen) for his opinion. 

 He was surprised to receive such specimens from that locality and formation, seeing 

 that the fragment.s presented unequivocal evidence of the Dinosaiuian order, and of a 

 species which, judjnug from the femur, was closely allied to the Iguanodou. Mr. 

 Harrison was quickened in his researches by receiving a reply to this effect ; he 

 offered rewards to the quarrpuen, and at length he became possessed of the most 

 complete skeleton of a Dinosaurian reptile ever obtained from any formation or 

 locality. Fortuuat-ely it was almost complete as regarded the skull and dentition 

 — a part of the osteology of the order which it was most desirous to know. Pre- 

 ceding inquiries hatl onlv made us acquainted with the lower jaw of the Igtianodon, 

 part of the lower jaw of the Megalosiiurus and Hvlteosaurus, together with some 

 email obscure fragments of the upper jaw of the Iguanodon. As to the cranium, 

 our knowledge was a blank until this happy discovery. The skull was entire, with 

 the exception of the end of the snout ; in fact, it was entire for all the purposes of 

 the comparative anatomist. So were the neck and trimk vertebrte, the sacrum, the 



Selvis, and a great porrion of the vertebne of the tail. The author described in 

 etaU the various portions of the skeleton, pointing out where they nearly re- 

 semble those of the Iguanodon and the Megalosaurus. These descriptions, with 

 illustrations, would appear in the forthcoming volume of the Paljeontographical 

 Society, 



On the Remains of a Plesiosaurian Reptile (Plesiosaurus Australis) /ro»i the 

 Oolitic Formation in the Middle Island of New Zealand. By Professor 

 OwEx, M.D., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



The author, premising a quotation from his 'Palaeontology,' that "the further 

 we penetrate into time tor the recovery of extinct animals, the further we must go 

 into space to find their existing analogues," and that '• in passing from the more 

 recent to the older strata, we soon obtain indications of extensive changes in the 

 relative position of laud and sea," cited some striking examples in proof of these 

 propositions from the reptilian class. The Mosjisaurus of tne cretaceous series 

 occurs in that series in England, Germany, and the United States. The Poh-pty- 

 chodon occurs in the same .series at Maidstone and at Moscow. Toothless Lacertian 

 reptiles have left their remains in ti-iassic deposits at Elgin, in Shropshire, and at 

 the Cape of Good Hope. Dic\-nodont reptiles occur in the same formation at the 

 Cape and in Bengal. The I'lesiosaurus, with a more extensive geological range 

 through the Jurassic or oolitic series, has left representatives of its genus in those 

 mesozoic strata in England and at her antipodes. Evidence of this extreme of 

 geographical range had been submitted to ProlVssor Owen by Mr. J. H. Hood, of 

 Sydney, New South "Wales, obtained by him from the Middle Island of New Zea- 

 land. This evidence consisted of two vertebi-al bodies or centrums, ribs, and 

 portions of the two coracoids of the same individual, all in the usual petrified con- 

 dition of oolitic fossils. Their matrix was a bluish-grey clav-stone, effervescing 

 with acid ; the largest mass contained impressions of parts of the arch and of the 

 transverse processes of nine dorsal vertebrie, and of ten ribs of the rig'ht side. 

 Portions of five of the right diapophyses aud of six of the ribs remained in this 

 Inatrix. The bones had a ferruginous tint, contrasting with the ruatrix, as is 

 commonly the case with specimens imbedded in the Oxfordian or liassic clays. 

 The impression of the first diapophysis and of its rib show the latter to have been 



