647 
Loc. and Sorizon. Darling Downs (O. W. De Vis, Colin. Queensland Museum) — 
Chinchilla Conglomerate. A. Geratodus tooth has also been obtained at the depth of 
about seventy feet from a well sunk in the Eight-mile Plains, near Brisbane. 
Class — R eptilia . 
Order-CHELONIA. 
Eamily— MEIOLANIIDiE.* 
Genus— IimOLANIA, Owen, 1886. 
(Proc. E. Soo., xl., p. 315.) 
Meiolania OwKNi, Smith Woodward. 
Megalania prisca, Owen, Phil. Trans. 1881, clxxi., Pt. 3, p. 1037, t. 37, f. 1, t. 38, f. 1-3. 
„ ,, Owen, Loo. oil , clxxii., Pt, 2, p. 047, t. 64, t. 66, f. 1-4. 
Ceratoohelys sthenurus, Huxley, Proo. R. Soc., 1887, xliii., p. 237 (Queensland cranium and tail-sheath). 
Meiolania Oweni, Smith Woodward, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. 1888, i., p. 89. 
Miola/nia Oweni, Lydekker, Cat. Eoas. Reptilia and Amphibia Brit. Mus., Pt. 3, 1889, p. 166. 
Ohs. A few pages further on will be explained the restriction which has been 
made in the use of the name Megalania prisca, Owen. It appears that it originally 
included — (a), lacertilian vertebras, and an occipital fragment ; (J), a chelonian skull 
and tail-sheath ; and (c), marsupial foot bones. The name is now restricted to the first 
of these, the chelonian skull and tail-sheath being referable to Owen’s later described 
genus Meiolania. 
This skull, found by Mr. G. P. Bennett in 1871, at King’s Creek, Darling Downs, 
was spoken of by Sir Eichard Owen as that of a Lacertiliiin, in the following words — “ They 
[i.e., the pieces] included unquestionable horn-cores, and the fore-part of an upper 
jaw, showing no trace of teeth or sockets on the alveolar border On 
restoring the cranium, as far as its transmitted fragments could be correctly juxtaposed, 
it manifested, in one part, not only a well-defined surface from which an apparently 
autogenous horn-core, as in the Giraffe, had become detached, but also pairs of exogenous 
ones like those of the Ox. The longest of these extended from the upper and side 
borders of the hinder portion of the cranial specimens, but evidently anterior, as in the 
Bison, to the occipital ridge. The surface, seemingly for the sutural attachment of a 
horn-core, was on the upper part of the nasal bone, symmetrical in shape, crossing 
the mid-line, like the horn of a Ehinoceros.” Only in the small Australian Lizard — 
Moloch horridus. Gray — could Owen find a head “resembling in its proportionate 
breadth and shortness that of Megalania." 
The tail-sheath was found in 188 L, at the same spot as the previous specimen, and 
was referred by Owen to the same animal. The specimen included three annular 
segments, and the terminal cap of an osseous sheath. “ Each of the annular segments,” 
says Prof. Owen, “ sends off two pairs of massive conical processes, like the horn-cores 
of the skull, but of a larger size. This caudal armour resembles that seen in IJromastiss 
primeps, O’Shaugn., from Zanzibar, and more particularly still that of Moloch horridus. 
Gray.” These remains were obtained by Mr. G. E. Bennett at King’s Creek, Darling 
Downs. 
The researches of Prof. Huxley f on other similar remains from Lord Howe 
Island, named Meiolania platyceps and M. minor hj Prof. Owen,J and having the greatest 
* Boulenger, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1887, Pt. 3, p. .5.54; Gunther, Encyclop. Brit., 9th Edit., 1888, xxiii., 
p. 457. 
+ Proc. R. Soc., 1887, xliii., p. 237. 
J Phil. Trans., 1886, olxxvii., Pt. 2, p. 471. t. 29-31. 
