FOSSIL REPTILES. 349 



formation have been found in great abundance. They are in 

 a calcareous schistus analogous to that of Solenhoffen ; and 

 M. George Frederic Jaeger, director of the Royal Museum of 

 Stuttgard, has figured and described them in an especial dis- 

 sertation. This able naturalist has even recognized many spe- 

 cimens taken from the same place during a number of years, 

 and scattered through various collections, where nobody took 

 the trouble of attempting their determination. 



The pieces which M. Cuvier has employed in his description 

 of the ichthyosaurus he has figured, and thus describes : — 



A skeleton about three feet and a-half in length. There are 

 wanting to the spine only some vertebrae of the end of the tail, 

 which have even left their impression. But there remains very 

 little of the ribs. The head is crushed, but tolerably complete, 

 as are also the two anterior extremities and the left posterior. 

 There are but few fragments of the pelvis. The omoplates, 

 clavicles, and anterior part of the sternum, have disappeared. 



Another skeleton, from a larger individual, with the teeth 

 less narrow. The tail and a part of the loins are wanting, like- 

 wise the sternum, the omoplates, and the clavicles ; but the 

 rest of the anterior extremities are complete, various bones of 

 the head in a good state, many ribs in their entire length, a 

 considerable remnant of the pelvis, and a posterior extremity 

 almost entire. The Baron had also numerous isolated verte- 

 brae, or joined together in series of eight, ten, or more. 



For the description of the head his materials were also very 

 complete. He had a head to which nothing was wanting but 

 the anterior end of the muzzle and a part of the occipital and 

 basilary region. The teeth are the same as in the preceding 

 skeleton. This head was described by SirEverard Home, in 

 the Philosophical Transactions for 1819, pi. xiii. But M. 

 Cuvier^disengaged it better from the stone which covered it, 

 and discovered some new peculiarities, especially the nostrils 

 and the foramen of the parietal. A head whose muzzle was 

 still more truncated, but which was valuable from possessing 

 the entire basilary and palatine region, also belonged to the 



