78 
FOSSIL REPTILE GALLERY. 
while others are scarcely larger than a good-sized Turkey. Some 
of these remains are so recent as still to be covered with dried 
skin, and even feathers. Several eggs are also shown ; but, large 
as these are, they are greatly exceeded in size by those of the 
Eoc {^pyornis) from Madagascar, in the south-east corner of 
the room. The skull and certain other remains of a gigantic 
extinct bird, Phororhaclios, from Patagonia are also shown in 
this room. These birds appear to have been allied to the 
existing South American Ceriema. 
Extinct The long gallery north of the fossil Mammal saloon con- 
Reptiles, tains a fine assemblage of Eeptilian remains. The south side 
Fig. 49. — Skeleton of the Iguanodon (greatly reduced), 
a Biped Dinosaur from the Wealden of Belgium. 
is devoted to the Great Sea-Lizards (Sauropterygia and Ichthyo- 
pterygia), mostly from the Lias formation. The skeleton of an 
Ichthyosaur from the Lias is shown in fig. 50. Two nearly 
perfect skeletons of Plesiosaurians from the Oxford Clay are 
mounted in cases in this gallery. Eanged in the cases on 
the north side are remains of the gigantic Dinosaurs, which 
far exceeded in size any other land-animals. A mounted 
plaster cast of a complete skeleton of an Iguanodon (fig. 49), 
found (with many others) in the Wealden strata at Bernissart 
in Belgium, is a conspicuous object in the middle of the 
