PREFACE 



TO THE 



REPTILIA OF THE MESOZOIC FORMATIONS. 



In collecting the materials for a work on the Teeth of Animals, I made my 

 first acquaintance with some previously unknown Beptilia. A genus was defined 

 for which the name Pliosaurus was proposed, and a characteristic tooth was figured 

 in pi. lxviii of the volume of my ' Odontography,' published in 1840. The sub- 

 sequently discovered characters were described and illustrated in the Monograph 

 on the Reptilia of the Kimmeridge Clay, in the volume of the Palaeontographical 

 Society for 1859, issued in 1861, pp. 15, 16. 1 



In the same Monograph of the volume for the year 1860, issued in 1863, the 

 huge teeth of the Pliosaurus grandis were described (p. 27), and figured of the 

 natural size in the folding Plate (PI. XII). 



Pursuing the researches, so liberally illustrated in the years 1861 and 1863, 

 further results, enriched by the additional species, Pliosaurus trochanterius and 

 Pliosaurus Portlandicus, were given with similar illustrations in the Palaeonto- 

 graphical volume for 1868, issued in 1869, pp. 1 — 12. 



The publication of the first part of the Monograph on Scelidosaurus (Volume 

 for 1859) had the usual result. The active and careful observer, James Harrison, 

 Esq., to whom I was indebted for the evidences of the Scelidosaur, supplied me 

 with the subjects for a second part of the Monograph, in which an almost entire 

 skeleton of this extinct British Reptile was described and figured in eleven 

 plates of 4to, and of larger (folding) size (Volume for 1860). 



My friend, encouraged by the publication of a description of the first 

 indication of the extinct reptilian Scelidosaurus, pursued with increased vigour 



1 This was associated, in the Pal. Soc. Vol. for 1859, with the Monograph on Scelidosavrus. 



