522 PROCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [June 25, 



The sutures presented characters similar to those exhibited by im- 

 mature birds ; and he thought that the separation of the bones in 

 this example showed affinities to the anserine type. He was quite 

 prepared to regard the fossil as that of a bird rather than of an Orni- 

 thosaurian. He inquired as to the character of the palatal bones. 



Mr. Charlesworth inquired as to the light in which this disco- 

 very would be regarded by evolutionists. 



Prof. Owen briefly replied. 



3. Contribution to the Anatomy of Hypsilophodon Foxii. An 

 Account of some recently acquired Remains. By J. W. Hulke, 

 Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



[Plate XYIII.] 



In 1849 a block of sandstone containing a considerable portion of a 

 reptilian skeleton was found by some labourers on the south-west 

 shore of the Isle of Wight, near Cowleaze Chine. It was broken in 

 two ; and one piece passed into the collection of the late Dr. Gr. 

 Mantell, the other into that of Mr. Bowerbank. Subsequently both 

 pieces were acquired by the British Museum and reunited. Thus 

 completed, the slab exhibits a continuous chain of some 18 pre- 

 sacral vertebrae, succeeded by the right ilium, the middle of which 

 is crushed and hidden by an imperfect metatarsus. Below this are 

 some loug slender bones, which have received different interpreta- 

 tions from distinguished anatomists ; and behind these are the left 

 femur and a series of 12 caudal vertebrae. In 1855 a description 

 of this fossil, illustrated by a plate, was given by Professor Owen, 

 in his ' Fossil Beptiles of the "Wealden Formations ' (vol. 1855, Older 

 Dinosauria, p. 2), where it is entitled " Part of the Skeleton of a 

 young Iguanodon, I. Mantelli," — a conclusion towards which the 

 weight of evidence then seemed to incline. In 1867 Prof. Huxley, 

 from a comparison of its vertebrae with those of Iguanodon, and from 

 the presence of four metatarsals in the pes, concluded its generic 

 distinctness from Iguanodon Mantelli ; and in 1870 he made it the 

 subject of a communication to this Society. Prof. Huxley prefaced 

 this paper by a detailed description of a small reptilian skull dis- 

 covered by the Rev. W. Fox in the same stratum from which the 

 Mantell-Bowerbank fossil had been obtained. It had been previously 

 exhibited by Mr. F. Fellows for Mr. Fox, at the Norwich Meeting 

 of the British Association, 1868, when Mr. Huxley drew attention to 

 the remarkable facts that the teeth contained in the posterior moiety 

 of the praem axilla were quite different in shape from the maxillary 

 teeth, and that the anterior moiety of the praemaxilla was beak-like 

 and edentulous. The maxillary teeth, though presenting a general 

 resemblance to those of Iguanodon, at the same stage of wear, yet 

 appeared, on close examination, so distinct as not to leave any doubt 

 of the generic distinctness of this reptile ; and Mr. Huxley proposed 

 for it the generic name Hypsilophodon, and called the species H 

 Foxii, after its fortunate discoverer. The preservation of a vertebral 



