78 FOSSIL EBPTILE GALLERY. 



while others are scarcely larger than a good-sized Turkey. Some 

 of these remains are so recent as still to be covered with dried 

 skin, and even feathers. Several eggs are also shown ; but, large 

 as these are, they are greatly exceeded in size by those of the 

 Eoc {^pyornis) from Madagascar, in the south-east corner of 

 the room. The skull and certain other remains of a gigantic 

 extract bird, Phororhachos, from Patagonia are also shown in 

 this room. These birds appear to have been allied to the 

 existing South American Ceriema. 

 Extinct The long gallery north of the fossil Mammal saloon con- 



tains a fine assemblage of Eeptilian remains. The south side 



Reptiles. 



Fig. 49. — Skeleton or the Iguanodon (greatly reduced), 

 a Biped Dinosaur from the Wealden of Belgium. 



is devoted to the Great Sea-Lizards (Sauropterygia and Ichthyo- 

 pterygia), mostly from the Lias formation. The skeleton of an 

 Ichthyosaur from the Lias is shown in fig. 50. Two nearly 

 perfect skeletons of Plesiosaurians from the Oxford Clay are 

 mounted in cases in this gallery. Eanged in the cases on 

 the north side are remains of the gigantic Dinosaurs, which 

 far exceeded in size any other land-animals. A mounted 

 plaster cast of a complete skeleton of an Iguanodon (fig. 49), 

 found (with many others) in the Wealden strata at Bernissart 

 in Belgium, is a conspicuous object in the middle of the 



