162 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



bemissartensis, of which a great many skeletons have in recent 

 years been found in Belgium, some of them in remarkably perfect 

 condition. 



The replica installed in the Gallery of Keptiles at the Natural 

 History Museum does not represent, in a single portion, the 

 work of the human imagination, every bone there represented 

 being matched by a corresponding original. In this respect the 

 restoration is unique. 



The vertebral column is 84 ft. in length. As it stands in 

 the Gallery of Eeptiles the specimen is 80 ft. in length over all, 

 the curves in the vertebral column, as it is mounted, accounting 

 for the loss in length. The height of the specimen, from the 

 top of the base to the top of the spines of the dorsal vertebrae, 

 is nearly 14 ft. The animal possessed a remarkably long neck, 

 and a still more remarkably long tail. The tail, gradually 

 diminishing in thickness, terminated in a long whip-like ex- 

 tremity. It has been interesting to the writer to ascertain, since 

 his visit to England, that Ceteosaurus leedsi, portions of the 

 skeleton of which are installed in the Department of Geology at 

 the British Museum, also had a similar whip-like prolongation 

 of the tail, and it is known that this was characteristic of yet 

 two other genera of sauropodous Dinosaurs. What the use of 

 this enormous prolongation of the tail may have been it is only 

 possible to surmise. It is not, however, relatively any longer 

 than is the case in some of the Lacertilia of the present day. 

 The number of caudal vertebrae in the replica is seventy-three. 

 In Varanus niloticus there are one hundred and more caudal 

 vertebrae. The skull of Diplodocus was, as is true of all the 

 sauropodous Dinosaurs, very small in comparison with the bulk 

 of the animal. The teeth are small, and plainly intended for 

 use in securing vegetable food. It has been suggested that the 

 animal fed upon soft, succulent, aquatic vegetation, which it 

 gathered in the lagoons and estuaries which it haunted. The 

 feet were huge in size, and, as comparative anatomists say, were 

 entaxonic — that is, the longest toes were placed on the inside of 

 the foot. In this respect the feet resemble those of the great 

 Ground Sloths of a subsequent geological period— the Megatherium 

 and the Mylodon. 



The gift of this replica to the British public was made by 



