THE 



aEOLOaiCAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE IV. VOL. V. 



No. I.— JANUARY, 1898. 



OiaiC3-IIsr.A.Xj JLiaTICIjIES. 



-On large Tereestrial Saurians from the Eh^tio Beds 

 OF Wedmore Hill, described as Avalonia Sanfordi and 

 PicnoDOJsr Herveyi. 



By H. G. Seeley, F.R.S., Professor of Geology in King's College, London. 



(PLATE I.) 



N 1894 Mr. W. A. Sanford described, in the Proceedings of the 

 Somerset Archgeological Society (vol. xl, 1894, p. 234), the 

 geological circumstances of the discovery of a large fossil reptile. 

 The fossil bones were found by the Eev. Sydenham H. A. Hervey 

 and himself in the Ehaetic beds in the parish of Wedmore, in the 

 Vale of Glastonbury ; and compared to Megalosaurus in its large 

 size and carnivorous character. The remains were generously 

 presented to the British Museum (Natural History) at Soutli 

 Kensington. I have now to redeem a promise made by Mr. Sanford 

 in his paper that I would name and describe the specimens. 



The fossils comprise teeth, bones of the hind limb, dbrsal and 

 caudal vertebra, and ribs. The discoverer remarks upon the way 

 in which the bones appear to have been broken, crushed out of form, 

 and scattered in the deposit. These results are partly due to 

 transport of the specimens at the time of deposition ; and partly, 

 apparently, to movements of the strata associated with the uplifting 

 of the rocks in that part of England. 



Only two teeth were saved ; they indicate two distinct genera. One 

 tooth (p. 2, Fig. 1) is of a generalized Megalosaurian type, and has 

 the summit of the crown greatly worn with use, and rounded. The 

 crown is broad and thick, 12 mm. wide and 7 mm. in thickness ; 

 but towards the base of the crown, the width from front to back 

 increases faster than its thickness. The anterior margin is rounded 

 from side to side, as well as convex from above downward. If any 

 serrations were ever developed, they were in the proximal part, which 

 is worn away. In type the tooth resembles Zanclodon and Eushele- 

 saurus. Those types agree with Megalosaurus in the limitation of 

 the anterior serrations to the upper margin of the tooth in the lower 

 jaw. Mr. Sanford states that the root of the tooth crumbled, and 

 that portions of the lower jaw were found. Taken by itself the 



DECADE IV. VOL. T. — NO. I. 1 



