Wellington Philosophical Society/. 475 



tbe sun the bleached bones of one whose last office has been to preserve from 

 destruction the friendly soil on which he reposed." 



The Leiodons, parts of whose skeletons are seen in our Museum, were of 

 enormous length, varying from thirty to one hundred feet; "their heads were 

 large, with eyes partly directed upwards; they were furnished with two pairs 

 of paddles like the flippers of a whale; they were furnished with formidable 

 teeth for seizing their prey." The physiognomy of the giant species in our 

 collection was rendered peculiar by a long projecting muzzle. Cope once 

 found the "wreck of an individual of the Leiodon proriger strewn around a 

 sunny knoll beside a blujff, and his conic snout pointing to the heavens 

 formed a fitting monument, as at once his favourite weapon and the mark 

 distinguishing all his race." And here I must quote from Cope a peculiarity 

 of these creatures by which they are unique among animals, but which I do 

 not see alluded to in Dr. Hector's elaborate report. Nor can I satisfy myself 

 that it could have existed in the reptiles whose fossil remains are in our 

 Museum : — "In swallowing their prey like snakes, they were without that 

 wonderful expansibility of throat, due in the latter to an arrangement of 

 levers supporting the lower jaw. Instead of this each half of the lower jaw 

 was jointed nearly half way between the ear and the chin. This enabled the 

 jaw to make an angle outwards, and so to widen by much the space enclosed 

 between it and its fellow. The ends of these bones were in the Pythonomorpha 

 only bound by flexible ligaments. The outward movement of the basal half 

 of the jaw necessarily twists in the same direction the 'quadrate' or column- 

 like bone to which it is suspended. The peculiar shape of the joint by which 

 the 'quadrate' bone is attached to the skull depends on the degree of twist 

 to be permitted, and, therefore, to the degree of expansion of which the jaws 

 were capable. As this diflers much in the different species, they are readily 

 distinguished by the 'quadrate' bone when found. There are some curious 

 consequences of this structure, and they are explained as an instance of the 

 mode of the reconstruction of extinct animals from slight materials. The 

 habit of swallowing large bodies between the branches of the under jaw 

 necessitates the prolongation forward of the mouth of the gullet; hence the 

 throat of the Pythonomorpha must have been loose and almost as baggy as a 

 pelican's. And the tongue," continues Cope, "must have been long and forked, 

 and for this reason its position was still anterior to the glottis, so that there 

 was no space for it except it were enclosed in a sheath beneath the windpipe 

 when at rest, or thrown out beyond the jaws when in motion. Such is the 

 arrangement in the nearest living forms, and it is always in these cases 

 cylindrical and forked." 



The Transactions of the Kew Zealand Institute show by numerous papers 

 how actively the minds of our geological friends are engaged on the subject of 



