318 FOSSIL REPTILES. 



The jugal bone appeared to have been prolonged behind and 

 under the orbits more than in the common monitors, where it 

 finishes in a point. This prolongation in the fossil is such, that 

 it might lead to a belief that it rejoined the temporal bone 

 behind, and by it the back part of the head, as in the crocodiles 

 and many saurians different from the monitors. A particular 

 character in this head, which is very remarkable, is a circle or 

 ring of osseous laminae, which occupies the internal part of the 

 left orbit, and is evidently composed, as Mr. Conybeare has 

 remarked, of osseous scales which invested the sclerotica of the 

 eye of the animal, like that in birds, tortoises, a great number 

 of reptiles, especially the monitors, and which we shall see still 

 more strongly marked in the enormous eyes of the ichthyo- 

 saurus. In fine, without entering into further details, it is 

 sufficient to repeat that M. Cuvier considers this animal as 

 constituting a new subgenus of the saurian order. It might 

 have been from twelve to thirteen feet in length, and is not 

 deserving of the name of lacerta gigantea given it by M. Soem- 

 mering, the last-mentioned lizard, and the one we are about to 

 describe, far surpassing it. 



This is the megalosaurus, discovered at Stonesfield, near 

 Oxford, by our respected countryman. Dr. Buckland, whose 

 eminent services to geological science are not less appre- 

 ciated abroad than at home. The remains were discovered 

 in a stratum of calcareous slate, which in some parts be- 

 comes sandy, and which the Doctor names the Stones- 

 field slate. This stone is situated a little below the middle 

 region of oolitic strata, and above the lias which contains 

 the ichthyosaurus. This formation, which is never above six 

 feet in thickness, is very much extended in this country. It is 

 a formation equally regular and ancient, and there is no possi- 

 bility that the fossil bones which it contains could have got 

 there through any cleft or any other accidental aperture. 



The pieces collected there consist of the fragment of a jaw, 

 containing a tooth developed, and many germs ; a femur, a 



