
THE FOSSIL REPTILES OF NEW JERSEY. 85 
These creatures have been referred to the neighborhood of 
the Varanide or Lace-lizards, which now haunt the shores 
of rivers in the tropics and southern regions of the Old 
World. Cuvier, Owen. and others, have expressed this 
view, and there has been little dissent from it expressed by 
paleontologists. They readily constitute, however, a dis- 
tinct order of reptiles, combining features of serpents, liz- 
ards, and Plesiosaurians. This is readily understood by the 
light of the abundant material discovered in various parts 
of the United States. The lizard-like affinities are, it is true, 
to the Varanians rather than to any others. 
'The Mosasaurus was a long slender reptile, with a pair of 
powerful paddles in front, a moderately long neck and flat 
pointed head. The very long tail was flat and deep, like 
that of a great eel, forming a powerful propeller. The 
arches of the vertebral column interlocked more extensively 
than in other reptiles except the snakes, presenting in a 
prolongation of the front of one, which enters beneath that 
immediately in advance of it, a rudiment of that extra 
articulation called the "zygosphenal." In the related genus 
Clidastes, this structure is as fully developed as in the 
serpents, so that we can picture to ourselves its well known 
consequences: their rapid progress through the water by 
lateral undulations; their lithe motions on land; the rapid 
stroke; the ready coil; or the elevation of the head and 
vertebral column, literally a living pillar towering above 
waves or brush of the shore swamps. While the construc- 
tion of the skull was as light as that of the serpents, it was, 
apparently, not so strong. The sutures are more frequently 
of the squamosal type, and the brain case was not as 
fully ossified in front. The teeth, too, are less acute, and 
therefore less adapted for retaining struggling prey : W ile 
the jaws were longer, the gape was not so extensive as in 
serpents of the higher groups, for the os quadratum, the sus- 
pensor of the lower jaw, though equally movable and fast- 
ened to widely spread supports, was much shorter than in 

