Arthur Smith Woodward— British Fossil CrocodiUa. 501 



to about six or seven generic types ; the earliest are referable to the 

 Steneosaurus of Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, and Teleidosaurus of Deslong- 

 champs; and those of the Middle and Upper Oolites chiefly belong 

 to JEolodon (H. von Meyer), Metriorhynchits (H. von Meyer), 

 DaJcosaiiriis (Quenstedt), and Machimosaurus (H. von Meyer). Mr. 

 E. T. Newton ^ has also described a fragmentary mandible, probably 

 crocodilian, from the Coral Rag of Weymouth, and this, if rightly 

 determined, may possibly indicate another genus. 



Of Steneosaurus, the French Oolites appear to have furnished 

 about twenty forms, and among British fossils, nine others have 

 already been named and described ; at least three of the latter, how- 

 ever, were originally placed with this genus on very questionable 

 grounds, and there is abundant reason for suspecting that they ought 

 rather to be referred to Metriorhynchus. It is also unfortunate that 

 the three cranial modifications made known by Sir Richard Owen 

 are not compared or contrasted with those previously described by 

 Deslongchamps ; and, with the exception of Steneosaurus Boutilieri, 

 Deslong.,^Mr. Hulke's S. StepJiani,^ i'rom theCornbrash of Closworth, 

 Dorset, is thus the only English species yet satisfactorily defined. 

 Those described by Owen * are S. Geoffroyi, from the Great Oolite 

 near Oxford ; S. laticeps, also from this formation and locality ; and 

 S. temporalis, from the " Oolitic Freestone" of Bath : all are founded 

 upon more or less complete skulls, but there are no particulars as to 

 the collection in which the type-specimen is preserved in either case. 

 Phillips* records a fragment of jaw, from the Kimmeridgian of 

 Shotover Hill, under the rather indefinite^ name of " S. longirostris, 

 Cuv. " ; and a cranial fossil of Oxfordian age, in the Woodwardian 

 Museum, Cambridge, is regarded by Seeley'' as the type of a new 

 species, S. dasyeephalus. 



Teleidosaurus does not appear to have been recorded as yet from 

 British strata, nor is there much definite information regarding the 

 occurrence of Metriorhynchus in this country. Deslongchamps, 

 indeed, seems to be the only palgeontologist who has hitherto 

 attempted to determine any English fragments of the last- 



^ E. T. Newton, " Notes on a Crocodilian Jaw from the Corallian Eocks of 

 "Weymouth," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxiv. (1878), pp. 398-400, pi. xvi. 



^ Under this name M. Deslongchamps ("Notes Paleont." p. 230, pi. xvi. fig. 2) 

 mentions a plaster cast of a skull and mandible from the Cornbrash near Oxford, 

 received from the Bristol Institution, and labelled ''Grocodilus Oxoniensis, Conybeare " ; 

 and in describing his outline figures of the specimen, he further refers to it as 

 " Steneosaurus Oxoniensis, De la Beche." But Mr. Edward Wilson, to whose kind- 

 ness the writer is indebted for particul irs of the Crocodilian fossils now in the Bristol 

 Museum, is unable to discover any such label in the collection ; and the present 

 whereabouts of the original specimen seems to be unknown. The specific name is 

 evidently MS. only. 



3 J. C. Mansel-Pleydell, " Note on a Gavial Skull from the Cornbrash of 

 Closworth," Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist and Antiquarian Field Club, vol. i. (1877), 

 pp. 28-32, pi. i. A detailed descriptive paragraph is supplied by J. W. Hulke. 



* Sir Richard Owen, " History of British Fossil EeptiLes, vol. iii. pp. 144, 145, 

 pi. 18, 19 (Crocodilia). 



^ J. Phillips, " Geology of Oxford," p. 388 (with woodcut of tooth). 



8 See Deslongchamps, "'Notes Paleontologiques," pp. 110, 111. 



'' H. G. Seeley, "Index to Eeptilia, etc., Woodwardian Museum," 1869, p. 140. 



