FOOTMARKS IN THE SANDSTONES OF CUMMINGSTONE 103 
fossil proceelian Crocodilia, the scutes of Crocodtlus Hastingsi@ are 
provided with articular facets, and I am inclined to think that this 
Crocodile also had a ventral shield. 
With regard to the Amphiccelian Crocodiles, the broad statement 
I have made above must be held at present to apply only to the 
Teleosauria, and naturalists in general do not seem to have admitted 
its truth even for them. Cuvier, for instance, remarks, with regard to 
his “Crocodile de Caen” (Teleosaurus Cadomensis, Geoffroy), “ They 
are rectangular and very thick, but are thinned towards their edges, 
and the whole of their external surface is excavated by little, close- 
set, hemispherical fossa, of the size of a lentil or that of a pea.... - 
These scales were disposed, as in our living Crocodiles, in regular 
series, longitudinally as well as transversely. The posterior edge of 
the one covered the base of that which followed it. The block 
belonging to the Caen Academy presents almost all the scales of one 
side in their natural position. It is seen that, from the first of the 
dorsal vertebre which have been preserved to the origin of the tail, 
there are 15 or 16 transverse series, and that each series had five 
scutes on each side, so that there were at least ten longitudinal 
series.” 
The “Grand bloc de Académie de Caen,” here referred to, is 
figured in Cuvier’s plate 235, fig. 14. The scutes represented are all 
flat, four-sided, and nearly square, and their internal surfaces only are 
represented. Moreover, the figure clearly shows six longitudinal 
rows, and not five. I have no doubt that the scutes figured did in 
fact form a part of the ventral armour, and not, as Cuvier sup- 
posed, of the dorsal shield. I am the more inclined to adopt this 
opinion because Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, to whom we are indebted for 
the first accurate description of the dermal skeleton of the Teleo- 
saurians, and who had the opportunity of examining all the speci- 
mens described by Cuvier, writes thus, without referring to Cuvier’s 
statement :— 
“Tn the Teleosaurians it is the ventral plastron which is the more 
complete. It is protected by numerous contiguous series of six 
strong thick scales, which are flat and imbricated at their posterior 
edges. Upon the back there are indeed other larger scales, but they 
are only two in number in each row; bent scales exist only on the 
upper part of the tail.”? 
Dorsal Scutes.—As the Tesson Collection has recently been pur- 
chased for the British Museum, some of the specimens on which 
1 Ossemens Fossiles, vol. ¥. part 2, pp. 139, 140. 
2 Mémoires de l’Académie, vol. xil. p. 24. 
