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TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



fore that learned body, which are now offered for the 

 first time for publication. 



Note on a paper entitled u Description of a fragment 

 of a head of a new fossil animal, discovered in a 

 marl-pit, near Moor est own, New Jersey" 



This fossil relic, in the possession of Mr. Lea, is in- 

 teresting, not only on account of its geological locality, 

 but also as it serves further to establish a new fossil ge- 

 nus, the Saurocephalus, described by the author of these 

 remarks, in the Journal of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, Philada. vol. iii. part 2d, p. 331, 1824. Both 

 these relics evidently belonged to animals allied to the 

 genus Ichthyosaurus, of Conybeare ; but which approach, 

 in their organization, more nearly to the fish than to the 

 lizard. The specimen described by Dr. Hays, in the 

 Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 

 possesses the following characters in common with the 

 Saurocephalus lanciformis : the bodies of the teeth 

 are in close contact throughout, the nerves and vessels 

 of the teeth passing on the inner side of the alveolar 

 processes. The inferior series of teeth entering the 

 cavities of the superior directly in the centre, in the 

 process of shedding ; the inferior series are completed 

 before they enter the superior, the dental serrature of 

 the superior and inferior jaws closing like incisors. In 

 both also, there exists a longitudinal groove along the 

 mesial aspect of the jaw bone, directly below the alveo- 

 lar margins, though this groove is not so evident in the 



S. Leanus ; but it must be remarked that this species 



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