334 PKOF. OWEN ON THE SKULL OP MEGALOSAT7BTJS. 



20. On the Skull of Megalosaurus. By Prof. Owen, C.B., F.R.S., 

 F.G.S., &c. (Read April 25, 1883.) 



[Plate XI.] 



Since the description of the fossils on which the genus and species 

 {Megalosaurus BucMandi) was founded *, the additional specimens 

 have been, mainly, parts of the trunk and limbs. . To the mandi- 

 bular and dental fossils have been added two portions of the 

 upper jaw, now in the Oxford Museum, on which Professor Phillips 

 has founded the restoration of the skull given in Diagram lvii. of 

 his ' Geology of Oxford' f . 



Acceptable, therefore, were the additional cranial and dental 

 evidences obtained by Edward Cleminshaw, Esq., M.A., E.G.S., of 

 Greenhill, Sherborne, Dorset, from the freestone of the 'Inferior 

 Oolite,' near. Sherborne %. Blocks of this stone were in course of 

 preparation for a building, when, indications of imbedded fossils 

 being detected by Mr. Cleminshaw on fractured surfaces of the 

 quarry-stones, he withdrew all such from the building-yard and 

 transmitted them to the British Museum for identification. 



Further requisite development of these remains having been there 

 carried out, the following descriptions and drawings are now sub- 

 mitted to the Geological Society. 



In the section devoted to the genus Megalosaurus in vol. i. 

 pp. 329-354 of the undercited work §, the materials for a recon- 

 struction of the skull were limited to portions of the mandible and 

 divers teeth therein implanted or detached. The most instructive 

 of these was a portion of the lower jaw, in the collection of His 

 Grace the Duke of Marlborough, from the same formation (Oolitic 

 Slate, Oxford) as that which had afforded Bucklandthe materials for 

 the species which bears his name. The other localities, yielding 

 the detached teeth figured in my ' Dinosauria,' plate 33, were the 

 ' Corn-brash ' of Oxfordshire, the ' Bath Oolite ' of Somerset- 

 shire, and the ' Wealden ' of Sussex ||. 



The differences shown by the mandibular specimens were limited 

 to size — the vertical diameter of the deepest part of the type man- 

 dible being 3| inches, while that of the Blenheim specimen gave 

 4| inches. But as the teeth retained in these mandibular pieces 



* Buckland (Rev. Wm, F.R.S., G.S.), "Notice on the Megalosaurus," &c.,in 

 ' Transactions of the Geological Society of London,' 2nd series, vol. i. 1824, 

 pp. 390-396, plates xl.-xliv. 



t 8vo, 1871, p. 199; see also Prof. Huxley, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxv. 

 1869, p. 311, pi. xii. ; and Prof. H. A. Nicholson, ' Ancient Life-history of 

 the Earth,' 8vo, 1877, p. 249. 



+ ' Dorset County Chronicle,' June 15th, 1882, " .Report of a Meeting of the 

 Dorset Natural- History and Antiquarian Field Club." 



§ Owen, British Fossil Eeptiles, 4to, 1855. 



|| Ibid. p. 351. 



