160 REPORT — 1841. 



I have received other portions of lii/sosteus from tlie Bone-bed at West- 

 bury Cliff, on the Severn, eiglit miles from Gloucester. 



Two spinous processes of fractured vertebrae are conspicuous and readily re- 

 cognizable by their wrinkled surface and great antero-posterior extent; they 

 agree also in size with the vertebra from Aust Passage, and seem to be evi- 

 dently of the same species. 



The distal end of a Saurian humerus and a nearly entire femur are asso- 

 ciated with these vertebral fragments. The humerus has an angular and 

 twisted shaft, and greatly expanded articular extremities, the surface of which 

 is ridged like the spinous processes, but with somewhat wider intervals. 



The femur equals the length of three vertebrse and a half; resembles that 

 of the Teleosaurus in shape, but has the outer surface of the expanded ex- 

 tremities wrinkled, though in a minor degree than in tlie humerus. The cor- 

 respondence of the long bones in size, and in the wrinkled character of part 

 of their surface with the vertebras, almost demonstrates that they belong to 

 the same species of Saurian. 



Order CHELONIA. 

 Family Testudinid^, Tortoises, or Land-Tortoises. 



Neiv Tied Sandstone Tortoises. — The most ancient of the evidences of Rep- 

 tiles of the Chelonian order, in British formations, appear to be referable to 

 Land-tortoises. The foot-prints upon the thin superimposed strata of the 

 new red sandstone quarries at Corn-Cockle Muir, of which an account is given 

 by Dr. Duncan in the Transactions of the lloyal Society of Edinburgh for the 

 year 1828, and those subsequently discovered in the same ancient formation 

 at the quarries of Craigs, two miles east of the town of Dumfries, are regarded 

 by Dr. Buckland as bearing most resemblance to the foot-prints of a small 

 species of tortoise*. 



Oolite Tortoises. — The impressions of horny scutes, about the size of those 

 covering the carapace of a tortoise ten inches in length, occur not unfrequently 

 in the oolitic slate of Stonesfield, and leave a light brown stain upon the matrix. 

 These corres]5ond so closely in form and in the arrangement and distinctness 

 of the concentric lines with those of existing tortoisesf, that the position which 

 they originally held on the carapace may often be determined. 



Family EmydidjE, Fresh-water Tortoises. 



Emys, sp. indet. — In the museum of Prof. Bell there is a specimen of an 

 Emydian Chelonite from the Eocene clay near Harwich, which differs from 

 the Emys testudiniformis of Sheppey in its flatter figure. 



The carapace is elliptical, gently convex at the middle and concave at the 

 sides, the margins being slightly raised. The external surface of i\\e osseous 

 buckler is slightly rugous ; the length of the carapace is 11 inches ; its breadth 

 at the suture between the fifth and sixth rib is 10 inches. 



The first vertebral plate is nearly flat ; the middle part of its posterior 

 margin extends backwards about one line and a half. The second vertebral 

 plate is of an oblong quadrangular figure, 6 lines in breadth : the third ver- 

 tebral plate is six-sided and 8 lines in breadth, the two anterior sides being 

 the shortest : the tenth and eleventh vertebral plates are broad. 



* "On comparing somo of tliese ini])ressions witli the tracks which I caused to be made on 

 soft sand, clay, and upon nubalced pie-crust, by a living Emys and Testudo Grceca, I found 

 the correspondence with the latter sufficiently close, allowing for difference of species, to ren- 

 der it highly probable that the fossil footsteps were also impressed by the feet of land-tortoises." 

 — Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 261. 



t The Emys centrata is, however, so denominated on account of the resemblance of its 

 scutes, in their concentric striation with those of tortoises, 



