314 FOSSIL REPTILES. 



A part of these anterior vertebrae, which have one tubercle 

 or lower spinous apophysis, doubtless belonged to the neck ; 

 but as the two tubercles, which, in the crocodile, bear the little 

 false rib on each side, are not found in any of them, it proves 

 that the animal was not a crocodile, and that it had more 

 liberty of turning its head aside. The lower spinous apophyses 

 do certainly exist in the crocodiles, but they also exist in other 

 saurian s and in many serpents 5 nay, some are found in the 

 ruminantia and solipedes. In the cetacea there is not the 

 slightest appearance of these tubercles, which would be utterly 

 incompatible with their cervical conformation. This lower 

 apophysis in most genera of saurians is compressed, and at the 

 posterior edge of the bone. It is round in the crocodiles, and 

 at the anterior edge. In the fossil it is also round, but trun- 

 cated, and at the middle of the vertebra. 



It would appear, from some other drawings of remains, that 

 the extraordinary breadth of the axis was a distinguishing fea- 

 ture in this animal from all other reptiles. The number of 

 vertebrae in this animal is thus given by M. Cuvier: — 



The atlas ; the axis ; eleven vertebrae with the lower apo- 

 physis, the articular and transverse apophyses ; five, without 

 the lower apophysis ; eighteen, without articular apophyses, in 

 which number the sacral are perhaps comprised ; twenty of the 

 tail ; twenty-six more with the two lower facets ; forty-four 

 without transverse apophyses, and seven without any apophyses : 

 in all, one hundred and thirty-three. 



This is more than double the number of the vertebrae of the 

 crocodile, but accords very well with the number in the moni- 

 tors, which is from a hundred and seventeen to a hundred and 

 forty-seven. 



The great number of vertebrae in the base of the tail, not 

 bearing the chevron-formed bone, M. Cuvier considers as a 

 distinctive, and indeed a generic, character of this animal. 



As the jaw measured three feet nine inches, the entire ani- 

 mal is calculated to have been upwards of four-and-twenty feet 



