PREFACE 



TO THE 



REPTILIA OF THE WEALDEN AND PURBECK FORMATIONS 



(SUPPLEMENTS Nos. 4—9). 



In the volume of Monographs issued by the Palseontographical Society for 

 the year 1887, the following, which have appeared in previous volumes, are noted at 

 pp. 25 and 29 of the ' List of Members, Volumes, &c.,' as in course of separate 

 publication : — 



1. The Reptilia of the Wealden Formation (Supplements). 



2. The Eeptilia of the Kimmeridge Clay. 



3. The Reptilia of the Mesozoic Formations, and 



4. The Cetacea of the Crag. 



The Supplemental Monographs first specified are chiefly devoted to the 

 restoration of the extinct Reptile called Iguanodon, from some resemblance of 

 its teeth to those characterising the Iguana lizard. Materials for this advance 

 were first kindly supplied by Samuel Husbands Becklbs, Esq., F.R.S., one of the 

 correspondents on whom I pressed my wish. The rich series of remains, and their 

 determinations as parts of the skeleton of an Iguanodon, form the subjects of the 

 Supplement, No. 4, pp. 1 — 15, Plates I, II, III, in the Palseontographical Society's 

 volume issued in 1872. The petrified bone, forming the core of the horny spine or 

 claw with which the fore-leg of the more peaceable vegetable-feeding Reptile was 

 armed, forms the subject of the 4to Plate II of that Monograph, and the large 

 folding Plate I gives the bones of the fore-limb, also of the natural size. The 

 geological period indicated by the rock from which these evidences were extricated 

 is that termed the ' Wealden,' in the Upper or later Secondary Period. 



Further and more exact knowledge of the dental characters of Iguanodon was 

 gained by the reception of fossils from a Wealden formation at Stammerham, Sussex, 

 transmitted to me by G. B. Holmes, Esq. These were noted and illustrated in the 



