WEALDEN FORMATIONS. 19 



London, on the topics touched upon at the conclusion of the preceding Monograph, and 

 subsequently submitted in greater detail to that body. The objection was, that " warm- 

 blooded animals did actually exist contemporaneously with the Mesosuchian Cro- 

 codiles." ^ As the only examples of the Mammalian class of which I was cognisant 

 v;ere the subjects of the undercited Monograph,^ and a few other species of like dimi- 

 nutive size, it did not seem to me to affect a question exclusively bearing upon " large 

 Mammalian quadrupeds."^ It seems, however, that the Crocodiles which most abounded, 

 if we may judge from the proportion of their fossil remains in the fresh-water deposits of 

 the ' feather-bed ' subdivision of the Purbeck series, were related in size to their con- 

 temporary diminutive Mammals. The Spalacotheres, Peralestes, Stylodons, Triconodons, 

 &c., may well have been the prey of the dwarf Crocodiles of the locality. For these were 

 reduced to dimensions which forbade them to disdain such succulent morsels, and at the 

 same time they were suitably armed and limbed for the capture of the little Marsupials. 



1 Hulke, ' Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,' May, 1878, p. 428. 



2 "On the Fossil Mammalia of the Mesozoic Formations," Palseontographical Soc. Volume for 1870. 

 ^ 'Quart. Journal,' ut supra, pp. 425, 426. 



