20 FOSSIL REPTILIA OF THE 



my ' Report on British Fossil Reptiles,' published in the volume of ' Reports of the 

 British Association' for 1 841, p. 145. I proposed the name of Baphiosaurus^ for a genus 

 of small extinct lacertine Sauria, characterised by slender awl-shaped teeth, attached 

 bv anchylosis in a single series to the bottom of a shallow alveolar groove, and to the 

 inner side of an outer wall or parapet of the same groove ; thus corresponding with 

 that type of saurian dentition called ' pleurodont' amongst modern Lizards. f 



The specimen figured in T. X, figs. 5 and 6, was discovered in the Lower Chalk 

 near Cambridge, and forms part of the rich collection illustrative of the Cretaceous 

 Formations of Cambridgeshire, in the possession of James Carter, Esq., M.R.C.S., 

 to whose kindness I am indebted for the opportunity of describing the specimen. It 

 consists of a considerable portion of the dentary part of the lower jaw, and contains 

 twenty-two of the above-described teeth, arranged in a close series : in fig. 5 some 

 teeth are shown in place ; in fig. 6, a, b, and c show teeth with the crown broken off ; 

 and below fig. 6 is the groove or incomplete socket of a shed tooth. 



At the period when this fossil was described,:|: the only vertebrae of a lacertine 

 Saurian, which at all approximated to the proportions of the species indicated by the 

 jaw and teeth of the Baphiosaurus, were those which Sir Philip de M. Grey Egerton, 

 Bart., had kindly submitted to my inspection, and which are figured in the volume of 

 the 'Geological Society's Transactions' already cited. § That chain of vertebrae was 

 discovered in the lower chalk of Kent, at Burham pit, and manifested specific distinc- 

 tions from the vertebras of the existing genera of Lacertians, with which I was able to 

 compare them in 1840 ; and at that time I could only suggest, when pressed for a closer 

 determination, that, on the hypothesis of their having belonged to the same species 

 as the fossil Lacertian from the Cambridge Chalk, they must be referred to a Lizard 

 generically distinct from any known existing species. Other specimens with which my 

 lamented friend Mr. Dixon subsequently supplied me, have rendered it highly probable 

 that the vertebrae (figured in T. X, fig. 4) belonged to an extinct Lizard, distinct from 

 the Cambridge Ba/phiosauriis, with the vertebral characters of which species we are 

 still, therefore, unacquainted. 



I have been favoured, by W. H. Bristow, Esq., with the inspection of portions, about 

 one inch and a half in length, of the upper and lower jaws of a Lizard ; the rami of 

 the lower jaw being a third of an inch in depth, with long, slender, awl-shaped teeth, 

 answering to those of the Baphiosaurus. There were five of these teeth fully formed 

 in the portion of the upper jaw, with intervening small ones in the course of develop- 

 ment. The portion of lower jaw had three or four irregular rows of small apertures 

 opening on its outer side. These specimens were found in the chalk at Northfleet. 



* From (j'upi'oi , an awl ; aavixn, a lizard. ■\ Odontograpliy, 4to, p. 182. 



X Transactions of the Geological Society, 2d Series, vol. vi, p. 412. 

 ^ lb. p. 413, pi. 39, fig. 3. 



