﻿Vol. 64.] METEIOBHYNCHUS BBACHYRHYNCHUS. 345 



19. Oil Metriobhynchus bbachybhynchus (Deslong.) /rom the 

 OxFOED Clay near Peteeboeough. By E. Thuelow Leeds, 

 B.A. (Communicated by Dr. Heney "Woodwaed, F.R.S., 

 P.G.S. Eead March 4tli, 1908.) 



[Plates XL & XLL] 



This species of Metriorliynclius was first described by E. Eudes- 

 Deslongcbamps in 1868 in his ' Notes Paleontologiques,' ^ and was 

 based on an imperfect skull obtained from Oxfordian strata in the 

 department of Calvados (Lower Normandy). He was led to dis- 

 tinguish it from other species of Metriorliynclius on account of the 

 shortness of the snout (' museau ' is the word which he employed, 

 under which term he included every thing in front of the orbits), 

 the principal feature determining the species being found in these 

 bones. In his table of Metriorhynchidge {op. cit. p. 294) he 

 defines it as follows : — 



' Museau tres court, pointe des os nasaux atteignant et meme depassant la 

 suture des os inter maxillaires.' 



He mentions one other mutilated skull found near Poitiers, and 

 now in the Museum at Paris. Besides this. Prof. Bigot, of the 

 University of Caen, to whom I owe my best thanks for photographs 

 of the type-specimen and for much valuable information, tells me 

 that there is in the Museum de la Eaculte des Sciences at Caen a 

 very mutilated skull with part of the vertebral column, and another 

 fragment of a skull, which may probably be referred to Metrio- 

 rhynchus hracJiyrhynchus. 



Apart from these, I can learn of no other specimens. The 

 species is not mentioned in the ' Catalogue of Eossil Beptilia in the 

 British Museum ' (Lydekker, 1885) nor in ' British Fossil Yertebrata' 

 (Smith Woodward & Sherborn, 1890). Prof. E. Eraas, in his mono- 

 graph on the Thalattosuchia,^ among which he includes the Metrio- 

 rhynchidse, compares it with Dacosaurus and Oeosaurus, and in his 

 table of Thalattosuchia (p. 67) he finds a parallel to it in the 

 Portlandian Geosaurus giganteus, which (he says) possesses all the 

 important features given in Deslongchamps's diagnosis of 31. hrachy- 

 rhynchus. Dr. W. E. Schmidt ^ classifies M. hracJiyrhynchus in the 

 same group as M. Jcekeli, the name which he gives to a skull of 

 M. superciliosus from the neighbourhood of Peterborough, while he 

 places M. superciliosus and M. BlainviUei in another group. Dr. G. 

 von Arthaber * is undoubtedly correct in condemning this classifi- 



^ Where not otherwise noted, all references to Deslongchamps are to his 

 ' Notes Paleontologiques,' pp. 333-43 passim & pi. xxiii, 



^ ' Die Meer-Orocodilier (Thalattosuchia) des oberen Jura, &c.' Palajonto- 

 grapbica, vol. xlix (1902-03) p. 1. 



3 Zeitschr. Deutsch. Geol. Gesellsch. toI. Ivi (1904) Monatsber. p. 100. 



< ' Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Organisation & der Anpassungserscheinungen 

 des Genus Metriorhynchus ' Beitrage z. Pal. & Geol. CEsterr.-Ungarns, vol. xix 

 (1906) p. 293. 



