XXI. — Notice on the Megalosaurus or great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield. 

 By the Rev. WILLIAM BUCKLAND, F.R.S. F.L.S. 



PRESIDENT OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY,, AND PROFESSOR OF MINERALOGY 

 AND GEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, ETC. 



[Read February 20tb, 1824.] 



J- AM induced to lay before the Geological Society the annexed represen- 

 tations of parts of the skeleton of an enormous fossil animal, found at Stones- 

 field near Woodstock, about twelve miles to the N. W. of Oxford ; in the 

 hope that, imperfect as are the present materials, their communication to the 

 public may induce those who possess other parts of the same reptile, to trans- 

 mit to the Society such further information as may lead to a more complete 

 elucidation of its osteology. 



The specimens here engraved are all preserved in the Oxford Museum. 

 Nothing approaching to an entire skeleton has yet been found, nor have any 

 two bones been discovered in actual apposition, excepting the vertebrae en- 

 graved at PI. XLII., and a similar series of equal magnitude presented to the 

 Geological Society by Henry Warburton, Esq. 



The detached bones here represented must have belonged to several in- 

 dividuals of various ages and sizes ; there are others in the Oxford Museum 

 which are derived from a very young animal; in the same stratum with 

 them there occur also fragments of large bones, of similar structure, which 

 have been rolled to the state of pebbles. Although the known parts of the 

 skeleton are at present very limited, they are yet sufficient to determine the 

 place of the animal in the zoological system. Whilst the vertebral column 

 and extremities much resemble those of quadrupeds, the teeth show the 

 creature to have been oviparous, and to have belonged to the order of Saurians 

 or Lizards. The largest thigh-bone of this animal in the Museum at Ox- 

 ford is two feet nine inches long, and nearly ten inches in circumference at 

 its central or smallest part. [See PI. XLIV. fig, 1 and 2.] From these di- 

 mensions as compared with the ordinary standard of the lizard family, a 

 length exceeding 40 feet and a bulk equal to that of an elephant seven 



