PEEFACE. 



In presenting Part I. of Mr. Lydekker's Catalogue of the Fossil 

 Reptilia preserved in the Geological Department, it may be de- 

 sirable to state that although the British Museum does not possess 

 such complete remains of individuals of the order Dinosauria as are 

 now to be seen in the Royal Museum of Brussels, or in that of Yale 

 College, New Haven, U. S., yet there is probably no other Museum 

 which contains so large a number of the original "type-specimens" 

 figured and described by Buckland, Mantell, Meyer, Owen, Huxley, 

 Hulke, Seeley, and many others during the past seventy years. 



These " types " must always be of the highest importance to all 

 students of Comparative Anatomy, and this Catalogue will furnish 

 them with exact information as to the nature of the remains upon 

 which the various genera and species were originally established. 

 Such knowledge becomes all the more needful as so many genera 

 and species of Dinosaurs and other Reptilia have been proposed 

 based upon fossil remains referable to entirely different parts of the 

 skeletons of individuals, thus rendering their correlation a matter 

 of extreme difficulty, if not an altogether impossible task. 



The present volume only records those species represented in the 

 Collection which belong to the orders Ornithosauria, Crocodilia, 

 Dinosauria, Squamata, Rhynchocephalia, and Proterosauria. 



