44 REPORT — 1839. 



class, and have selected the Enaliosauria, or ^ Lizards of the Sea' 

 — a race of which there is no longer any existing representative 

 — for the subject of the present inquiry. 



For the study of these remains I have visited the museums 

 of the metropolis, of Cambridge, Birmingham, Bristol, Bath, 

 Hull, York, Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Lancaster, and 

 other places, and have had access to the private collections of 

 Viscount Cole, Sir P. Grey Egerton, Sir Astley Cooper, Dr. 

 Johnson, Messrs. Hawkins, Bowerbank, Saull, T. Bell, and 

 other gentlemen ; to whom, as well as to the scientific curators 

 of the public and provincial museums above cited, I beg to re- 

 turn my grateful acknowledgements for the liberal exposition 

 of their fossil treasures, and their urbane attentions to every 

 wish that arose out of my occupations. 



As the comparison of the Saurian remains in these collections 

 with those described or indicated in the recent treatises of Prof. 

 Ja'ger, M. Hermann von Meyer, and other distinguished German 

 Palaeontologists, could not in all cases be made with satisfactory 

 precision from the descriptions alone, I found it necessary to 

 visit some of the principal depositories of the original specimens 

 studied by those authors. At Frankfurt, besides the liberal 

 access to the Senkenbergian museum, I enjoyed the privilege of 

 examining the private collection and the valuable and extensive 

 series of original drawings of fossils made by M. Hermann von 

 Meyer, to whom I am particularly indebted for his attentions. 

 I have much pleasure in making similar acknowledgements to 

 Prof. Jager of Stuttgard, and to Prof. Kaup of Darmstadt, the 

 peculiar treasures of whose collection, however, belong to a 

 higher class of Vertebrata. 



The study of these collections has enabled me to identify 

 some of the Saurians of the German lias beds with the species 

 characterizing the corresponding strata in our own island, and, 

 on the other hand, to obtain a certainty as to specific differences, 

 which, without actual comparison, would have been only matter 

 of conjecture. 



Of the reptilian species, the fossil remains of which are the 

 subject of the present report, the term of existence has long 

 expired; and the peculiar roodifications which characterized 

 their type of structure, can now be studied only in the remains 

 which the labours of the geologist bring to light. They will be 

 here considered under three points of view, anatomically, zoo- 

 logically and geologically : or, first, with reference to the re- 

 storation of the skeleton and the homology of its several parts 

 to those of existing Vertebrates ; secondly, as to the generic and 

 specific modifications of the Enaliosaurian type, and the affini- 



