THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE 



NEW SERIES. DECADE III. VOL. VIII. 



No. VII.— JULY, 1891. 



OI^IC3-I^:^^.A.^L -A-E-tiglies. 



I. — Note on a neakly perfect Skeleton of Ichthyosaurus 



TENUmOSTRIS FROM THE LoWER LlAS OF StREET, SOMERSET. 



By E. Lydekker, B.A., F.G.S., F.Z.S., etc. 



(PLATE IX.) 



SOME ten years ago Mr. Alfred Gillett observed in a quarry of 

 the Lower Lias near his residence at Overleigh, Street, Somer- 

 set, a number of broken slabs of shaly limestone, containing por- 

 tions of the skeleton of an Ichthyosaur. These slabs, which had 

 been cast aside by the workmen, were fitted together by Mr. Gillett, 

 who finally succeeded, after the expenditure of great pains, in skil- 

 fully developing from them an almost entire example of the skeleton 

 of Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris, Conybeare. 



With his usual liberality Mr. Gillett presented this remarkably 

 beautiful specimen to the Geological Department of the British 

 Museum (JNatural History) in 1884, where it is now exhibited on 

 the east wall of Gallery No. XI, forming one of the most striking 

 objects in the fine series of Reptilian remains from the English Lias.^ 



The gift of this specimen to the Museum was particularly oppor- 

 tune, since the collection, although rich in some of the other sj^ecies 

 of the genus, was previously but poorly supplied with examples of 

 Ichthyosaurus tennirostris ; and is even now widely distanced in this 

 respect hy the Dublin Museum of Science and Art. Mr. Gillett's 

 specimen, of which we give a figure in Plate IX., although by no 

 means a large example of the species, is one of the best preserved 

 skeletons that have ever come under our notice. The animal lies 

 on its ventral surface, with the back exposed and the limbs sym- 

 metrically expanded on either side ; and it is largely due to the 

 symmetrical position in which it has been preserved that the beauty 

 and apparently unusual perfection of the specimen are due. Almost 

 the only damage that the skeleton has sustained consists of some 

 crushing of the skull, and the loss of a few of the tail vertebree, and 

 of some of the small bones of the paddles. 



The fortunate rescue of this interesting specimen by Mr. Gillett 

 affords a good instance of the value of local observers in preserving 

 rare fossils which would be otherwise totally lost. 



We may remind our readers that the species before us is not a 

 typical representative of the genus Ichthyosaurus, of which the 



1 The specimen is referred to in the Museum Catalogue of Fossil Eeptiles, pt. 2, 

 p. 84, JSTo. u. 498 (1889). 



DECADE III, YOL. YIII. NO. VII. 19 



