Arthir Smith Woodward — British Fossil Crocodilia. 497 



— so commonly has it been the custom to take advantage of each 

 successive " find " for the manufacture of a new generic or specific 

 name, however fragmentary the materials, and so frequently have 

 species been imperfectly compared and characterized, — that a most 

 intricate and perplexing synonymy has arisen, which it would 

 require long-continued research bj' the profoundest of specialists to 

 unravel. Moreover, cases are not unknown, in which type speci- 

 mens have subsequently proved to be unfortunate restorations, and 

 the occasional disregard of priority in nomenclature has also con- 

 tributed to increase the confusion. 



In this country, indeed, there appears to have been no attempt, as 

 yet, to collect the desultory materials and determine exactly the 

 extent of our present knowledge of British forms : and it is the 

 remembrance of this circumstance that has induced the writer to 

 bring together the following connected account, in the hope that it 

 may tend to point out the chief deficiencies and facilitate further 

 research. It is proposed to give complete references to all studies 

 on the subject hitherto published in England, and also enumerate 

 the more important allusions to British species to be found in the 

 memoirs of Continental authors. 



Tkiassic Ckocodilia. 



The earliest members of the order at present definitely known, 

 either in the Old World or the New, are discovered in the Upper 

 Trias, and belong to at least three genera. Only one has been 

 recorded from British strata, — Stagonolepis, from the yellow sand- 

 stones near Elgin, N.B., — and this does not appear to be represented 

 by more than a single species. It was originally described by 

 Agassiz,^ in 1844, on the evidence of a fragment of scaly armour, 

 and considered by him — though he had only examined drawings of 

 the fossil — to constitute a genus of ganoid fishes; twelve years later, 

 however, through the assiduous researches of the Rev. Dr. Gordon, 

 of Birnie, a more perfect series of remains enabled Prof. Huxley ^ to 

 demonstrate the reptilian and crocodilian nature of the animal, and 

 the subsequent discovery of other materials has rendered it possible 

 to produce an elaborate monograph on the subject.^ Prof. Huxley 

 makes known fragments of the skull and mandible, teeth, vertebree, 

 ribs, interclavicle, scapula, coracoid, humerus, ilium, ischium, pubis, 

 femur, tibia?, fibula (or radius), metatarsals, and scutes, and the 

 anatomy of this form is considerably elucidated by comparing the 

 various parts with the beautifully preserved remains of its close ally, 

 Beloclon, from the Upper Keuper beds, near Stuttgart* Nothing 

 seems to have been added to our knowledge of Stagonolepis since 



1 L. Agassiz, " Eech. Poiss. Foss. Vieux Gres Rouge," p. 139, pi. 31, figs. 13, 14. 



- T. H. Huxley, " On the Stagonolepis Robertsoni (Agassiz) of the Elgin Sand- 

 stones," Quart. Joum. Geol. Soc. vol. xv. (1859), pp. 440-4(i0, pi. xiv. 



3 T. H. Huxley, "The Crocodilian Eemains found in the Elgin Sandstones, etc.," 

 Mem. Geol. Survey, Mon. iii. (1877) : see also the Professor's paper "On SStngono- 

 lepis Bobertsoni, and on the Evolution of the Crocodilia," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 

 vol. xxxi. (1875), pp. 423-438. 



* See memoirs on this genus by H. von Meyer in the " Palceontographica," vols. 

 vii. X. and xiv. (1861-1865;. 



i)ECABE III. VOL. II. — NO. XI. 32 



