THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



No. LXVIII.— FEBRUARY, 1870. 



I. — Notice of some Saurian Fossils discovered by J. H. Hood, 

 Esq., at Waipara, Middle Island, New Zealand. 



By Prof. Owen, F.R.S., F.G.S., &c. 



PLATE III. 



IN the year 1861 I communicated to the Geological Section of the 

 British Association, which that year met at Manchester, a 

 description of certain fossils discovered by J. H. Cockburn Hood, 

 Esq., in the Canterbury Settlement of the Middle Island of New 

 Zealand ; which fossils, kindly submitted to me for description by 

 that gentleman, were afterwards presented by him to the British 

 Museum. 



These fossils, having characters most nearly resembling those of 

 Sauropterygian Eeptiles, were referred to a species named, provision- 

 ally, Plesiosaurus Australis. 



On Mr. Hood's return to New Zealand, in 1869, he resumed his 

 researches for evidences of Mezozoic deposits in the Middle Island ;^ 

 and I received from him, in August, 1869, the following notice of 

 his success : — 



" Christcliurch, Canterbury, New Zealand, May 15th, 1869. 



"My Dear Professor Owen, — I haye already written to you this month, telling 

 you that I had spent another week in the exploration of the ravines at the ' Waip^ira,' 

 and have been very successful in obtaining fine specimens of the remains of Reptilians 

 of at least three species. The head I mentioned having obtained seems to be that of 

 a creature resembling Teleosaurus : perhaps the portion of the femur, found neir, 

 may have belonged to the same ; if so, he must have carried himself well off the 

 ground when crawling along the old river banks (.'), or by the shores of the gulf of 

 the old Southern Continent (?). 



" Since discovering these remains, in another ravine, some six miles distant, my 

 friend Mr. Innes and I found other very interesting fossil bones — a portion of back- 

 bone (12 vertebrae), concave on both sides, coracoid and other bones, of a very large 

 lizard fish {Plesiosaurus, perhaps) ; the vertebrae are ruther more hollowed on the 

 anterior than the posterior side ; also tail-vertebrse, humerus, &c., I think of an 

 Ichthyosaurus. 



"My geology of the district is not very easy to map out, and, without further 



^ In the North Island the regular and highly- inclined beds of marl on the South 

 Head of Waikato and western shore of Kawhia Harbour have been referred by 

 Hochstetter to the '" Secondary period," on the ground of his discovery therein of 

 Ammonites of the family Ganaliculati and Beleniuites. I believe the Keptilian 

 remains about to be described afford as sure ground for a like reference of their 

 matrix. 



VOL. VII. — NO. LXVIII. 4 



