1882.] On the Great Homed Saurian of Australia. 267 



II. "Notice of Portions of the Skeleton of the Trunk and 

 Limbs of the Great Horned Saurian of Australia {Megalania 

 prisca, Ow.)." By Professor Owen, C.B., F.R.S., G.S., &c. 

 Received June 19, 1882. 



Former communications on the subject, admitted into the " Philo- 

 sophical Transactions," related to the skull and terminal caudal 

 vertebras, from a river-bed at Toowoomba, Queensland ; and in the 

 discussion on those papers, a doubt was expressed whether they had 

 been correctly referred to the genus and species founded upon trunk- 

 vertebras from other and remote localities, which had been the subject 

 of a former paper, communicated to the Royal Society June 17th, 

 1858, and published in the volume of the "Transactions," 1858, p. 48, 

 Plates YII and VIII. 



My correspondence with Dr. Bennett, F.L.S. of Sydney, New 

 South Wales, and with his son, George Frederic Bennett, Esq., of 

 Toowoomba, Queensland, has been unintermitting ; and I have been 

 recently favoured with the reception of a consignment of fossil 

 remains from the petrified drift formation of the same river-bed in 

 which the subjects of the " communications " of April 15th, 1880, 

 and of February 3rd, 1881, were found. 



The most instructive of these is a dorsal vertebra, so closely corre- 

 sponding in size - and characters with the subject of Plate VII (torn, 

 cit. 1858) as to render further description and figures unnecessary. 



Coming from the same formation, locality, and vicinity, as the parts 

 of the skull (restored in Plates 37, 38, of the " Phil. Trans.," 1880), no 

 further doubt as to the Saurian affinities of that part seems admissible. 

 No trace of a Chelonian reptile has been found or indicated by any 

 of the numerous fragmentary remains of Megalania from Mr. Ben- 

 nett's locality of that genus. 



In the last transmission, received June 16th, 1882, are portions of 

 the pelvis, including part of the sacrum and of the right iliac bones. 

 The sacral fragment indicates two vertebras, with the foramina for the 

 transmission of the nerves of the hind limbs, in two pairs. The 

 corresponding vertebras have coalesced, and there is a small portion of 

 a third vertebra in like osseous attachment. 



The portion of a right iliac bone shows a greater relative expanse of 

 the upper part than is seen in existing Laceriilia, and a corresponding 

 departure from the cylindroid character of the body of the ilium in 

 Chelonia. On the probable hypothesis that the above fossil fragments, 

 like the associated dorsal vertebra, are parts of the skeleton of 

 Megalania prisca, the pelvic fragments suggest an approach to a 

 Dinosaurian character. 



Of the corresponding limb a fragment of the shaft indicates a large 



