2 
FOSSIL REPTILIA OF THE 
cealed some joint, process, or other light-giving or characteristic part of the frame- 
work. In the course of our operations it soon became evident that the whole 
vertebral column, in a series of consecutive and but slightly disturbed and mostly 
coarticulated segments, from the axis to the thirty-fourth caudal vertebrse inclusive, 
had been raised from their place of deposit; all the parts, save the centrum and 
a small and low coalesced neural arch, having ceased to be developed, in the 
terminal caudal vertebrse, the last of which in the recovered series was reduced to 
dimensions so small as to indicate that but very few remained to complete the tail of 
the Scelidosaur. The first vertebra of the neck was adherent to the back part of the 
skull described in the monograph of the Society’s Volume for 1859, issued in 1861. 
Vertehral Cohim,7i. Tabs. I — IX. 
In the series of Liassic masses following that which included the skull the 
first four contain twenty vertebrm, extending from the axis to the mass including 
the sacrum, and clearly consecutive save at one part of the neck. 
The back part of the Liassic mass containing the skull of the Scelidosaur 
includes the atlas vertebra in connection with the occiput, and surmounted by a 
pair of dermal bones (Tab. I, fig. 1). The block which fits to the fractured surface 
including the body and the neurapophyses of the atlas contains the axis and third 
cervical vertebra (ib., fig. 2). The next piece contained one nearly entire cervical 
vertebra (ib., figs. 3 and 4) and part of a second vertebra. The third, larger, piece 
contains ten coarticulated vertebrse (Tabs. II and III), but the continuity of the 
fore part of this mass with the last mentioned cannot be clearly made out. The 
fourth block fits to that containing the ten dorsals, and includes the five consecutive 
vertebrse with part of a sixth (Tab. IV). The block which contains the sacrum, 
has also two vertebrm in advance of it (Tab. VI), part of the first of which lies in 
the preceding block. 
Thus, we have evidence of at least twenty-two “true” vertebrse; but there 
may have been one or two vertebrse from the region of the neck which have not 
been recovered. The vertebra attached to the first sacral seems not to have sup- 
ported ribs ; the one in front of it has a pair of long, freely articulated ribs, and may 
be reckoned the last dorsal. Including this, there may be assigned sixteen vertebrse 
to the dorsal series, if we include therein the ten vertebrse in Tab. II, leaving 
six or seven to the cervical series. The lumbar series is thus reduced to one 
vertebra. The sacrum includes four vertebrae. Of the caudal series thirty-five 
vertebrae are preserved, in five consecutively fitting blocks of matrix, leaving parts 
of two terminal ones, so small and simple as to show that very few are wanting 
in the present fossil skeleton. 
4 
