THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. II. 



No. VI.— JUNE, 1895. 



I. — Note on a Skeleton of a Young Plesiosaur from the 

 Oxford Clay of Peterborough. 



By C. W. Andrews, B.A., B.Sc, F.G.S. 

 Assistant in the British Museum (Natural History). 



(PLATE TX.) 



ONE of the most notable additions made to the Gallery of Fossil 

 Reptilia in the Natural History Museum during the last few- 

 years is the beautifully preserved Plesiosaurian skeleton which is 

 represented in Plate IX. 



This specimen was obtained by A. N. Leeds, Esq., of Eyebury, 

 near Peterborough, from a pit in the Oxford Clay at Fletton, in the 

 neighbourhood of that town, and is a splendid example of the results 

 obtainable by a careful collector who is able and willing to devote 

 time and energy to personally superintending the removal from the 

 deposits in which they are found of those specimens brought to his 

 notice. The neglect of ordinary precautions has led to the loss or 

 separation of too many valuable associated series of bones for it to 

 be necessary to insist on the extreme value of such careful work as 

 that of Mr. Leeds, to whom we are indebted for one of the finest 

 collections of Mesozoic reptiles and fishes ever made. 



In the present specimen (Leeds Coll., No. 36) the bones are quite 

 uncrushed and free from matrix, and, though some of the more 

 delicate ones were found broken into numerous fragments, it has 

 been possible in most cases to piece them together, every fragment 

 having been carefully preserved and numbered. The skull, owing 

 to the fragile nature of many of its constituent bones, is, un- 

 fortunately, much broken and is imperfect, but the rest of the 

 skeleton is complete, with the exception of some caudal vertebrse 

 and chevrons, a few ribs, and some small paddle-bones. The whole 

 has been skilfully mounted by Mr. C. Barlow, and now presents the 

 appearance shown in Plate ]X. 



For reasons given in a recent paper ^ I consider that this skeleton 

 is that of a young individual of Crijptoclidiis Oxoniensis, Phillips, sp. 

 A short description of the chief osteological characters exhibited 

 by this specimen may now be given : — 



1 Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 6, vol. xv (1895), p. 333. 



BECADE IV. — VOL. II. — NO. VI. 16 



