306 
the anolis only, among the lizards, agree with many of the serpents, 
batracii, and fishes, in possessing these peculiar weapons. 
But the serpents have them on both their anterior and posterior 
palate-bones ; the frogs and hylos on a transverse line on the anterior ; 
the iguanas and salamanders lengthwise on the posterior ; many fishes, 
such as the pike, salmon, and genus Gadus, have them also length- 
wise. This circumstance had somewhat misled P. Camper and M. 
Van Marum. Comparison will, however, show that the bones in the 
fossil animal in which these teeth are implanted, resemble those of 
reptiles, and not those of fishes. 
In the monitor and the iguana, the bone which M. Geoffroy calls 
the posterior palatine, and which M. Cuvier considers as the internal 
pterygoidal apophysis, is not, as in the crocodile, united with the 
sphenoidal bone, nor enlarged into a large triangular plate. It is here 
a bone with four branches, one of which extends forwards, and unites 
with the anterior palatine ; the second passes to the side, to join the 
bone called, by M. Geoffroy, the alar bone, which unites itself with 
the superior maxillary bone ; the third rests, by a surface covered by 
a cartilage, on an apophysis of the base of the skull ; and, lastly, the 
fourth extends backwards, and gives attachment to muscles, but does 
not articulate with any bone. 
It is on the inner edge of the anterior branch that the series of teeth 
is implanted which distinguish the iguana. The anolis has this bone 
wider in all its parts, and the posterior branch shorter, but it in other 
respects resembles that of the iguana. In the monitors, on the con- 
trary, all the parts of this bone are narrower, and it is without teeth. 
Now, viewing the palate-bones of the fossil animal, all the parts are 
directly seen , which have been just described as existing in the iguana. 
The one which is in the upper part, k, l, m, is that of the right side. 
Its external apophysis, o, is concealed, but the posterior, /, although 
broken at the end, shows plainly that it must have been as long in 
proportion as in the iguana. The other, o', k', l, m, is that of the right 
