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XIII. An account of the fossil skeleton of the Proteo-saurus. 
By Sir Everard Home, Bart. V. P. R. S. 
’ Read March 4, 1819. 
In the year 1814, the skull and vertebrse of this fossil ske- 
leton were first described in the Philosophical Transactions; 
and so much was the attention of the public called to the 
subject by that account, and so many specimens were brought 
under my observation, that in the year 1816, I was enabled 
to make many valuable additions to my former paper. In 
1818, I laid before the Society the description of bones not 
before met with ; and since that time, through the kindness 
of Mr. De la Beche, and Colonel Birch, I have procured 
materials, which put it in my power to describe nearly the 
complete skeleton, and to correct any errors, which the imper- 
fect state of the first specimens had led me to commit. 
One of these errors was, a belief that the orifice immediately 
before the margin of the orbit was natural, as it occurred in 
every specimen of the skull I had met with, five or six in num- 
ber; but Colonel Birch has shown me a portion of a skull 
of very large dimensions, in which the nasal bones are perfect, 
and no such orifice is seen ; so that the aperture described and 
delineated in my first paper, is the effect of injury the bones 
have sustained. A drawing of this skull is annexed, half 
the size of the original specimen. The drawing is made by 
Mr. Clift. 
MDCCCXIX. 
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