50 FOSSIL REPTILIA OF THE LONDON CLAY. 



Order — Lacertilia. 

 Pleurodont Lizard (?) Tab. XIV, figs. 43, 44. 



Although members of the present order, with the modern procoelian type of 

 vertebrae, existed in England during the Wealden and Chalk periods, and the greater 

 part of the actual class of Reptiles, in all parts of the world, is composed of the same 

 order, yet but one solitary example of true Lacertian from the formations of the Eocene 

 tertiary period has hitherto come under my observation — a fact which has often excited 

 my surprise. Future researches may bring to light farther and better evidence of the 

 class. 



Among the fossils obtained by Mr. Colchester from the Eocene sand, underlying 

 the Red Crag at Kyson, or Kingston, in Suffolk, the existence of a Lizard, about the 

 size of the Iguana, is indicated by a part of a lower jaw, armed with close-set, slender, 

 subcylindrical, antero-posteriorly compressed teeth, attached to shallow alveoli, and 

 with their bases protected by an external parapet of bone. The fragment of jaw is 

 traversed by a longitudinal groove on the inside (fig. 44), and is perforated, as in 

 most modern Lizards, and as in some Fishes, by numerous vascular foramina along 

 the outside (fig. 43). The teeth are hollow at their base. 



