596 
DR. GUNTHER ON THE ANATOMY OE HATTERIA. 
About that period several other examples or parts of such reached England: the 
British Museum received four (adult and young) from Dr. F. Knox, Captain Drury, and 
the Collection of Haslar Hospital. Sir A. Smith obtained two living specimens, which 
he kept for some time ; and finally the Royal College of Surgeons came into possession 
of a skull and some vertebrae, by which Professor Owen was enabled to point out some 
of the peculiarities which render this lizard so highly interesting ( Bhynchocephalus , in 
Trans. Geol. Soc. vol. vii., 1845, p. 64, pi. 6, figs. 5-7 (skull), and in Catal. Osteol. Ser. 
Collect. Roy. Coll, of Surg. vol. i., 1853, pp. 142, 143). 
No other specimen appears to have reached Europe; indeed, as far as I am aware, 
no Museum out of England appears to possess Hatteria. French Herpetologists do 
not even mention it ; Stannius appears to have overlooked Professor Owen’s observa- 
tions. Evidently restricted in its distribution, exposed to easy capture by its sluggish 
habits, esteemed as food by the natives, pursued by pigs, it is one of the rarest objects 
in zoological and anatomical collections, and may one day be enumerated among the 
forms of animal life which have become extinct within the memory of man. 
I may be allowed to pass over a detailed description of the external characters of 
Hatteria , which are sufficiently known from the diagnosis and figure given by Dr. Gray 
{loc. cit.). 
The Skull (figs. 1-7)*. 
The occipital arch is distinguished by its unusual shortness, the basioccipital being, 
on its lower surface, only 5 millims. longf . The foramen occipitale has the not very 
usual appearance of being higher than broad ; more than one-third of its circumference 
is formed by the superoccipital, the exoccipitals J contributing but little to the formation 
of the condyle, which in our specimen is of the usual width, not broader than in Mo- 
nitor , Iguana , Grammatophora , Crocodilus. The superoccipital is raised into a short 
mesial crest, entirely separate from the superstructure of the parietal. The exoccipital (a) 
(most closely united with the alisphenoid, b) is dilated and swollen at its base to receive 
the acoustic cavity, and emits its lateral process in an oblique but only slightly back- 
ward direction. This process is styliform, though strong, deeply grooved below along 
its entire length, to receive the long stapes (c) ; it is strengthened by a paroccipital (d), 
which covers nearly the entire side of the process, and is united with the occipital part by 
only partly distinct sutures. 
The basisphenoid is comparatively long, the posterior pair of hypapophyses (e) (tubercles 
for insertion of the musculus rectus capitis anticus) being in close proximity to the occipital 
condyle, but rather remote from the anterior pair ( f) for the articulation of the ptery- 
goids). The brain-capsule being much compressed, the parietal bone (g) is very narrow, 
and elevated Jnto a strong mesial crest, which, although appearing simple in an individual 
* The figures in this Paper refer to Plates XXYI., XXYII., and XXYIII. 
t As I shall have occasion to give the dimensions of some parts of the skull in millimetres, I must remark 
that the description is taken from a skull 57 millims. long (between end of premaxillary and occipital condyle) 
and 47 millims. broad (between the outer surfaces of the tympanic bones). 
$ The sutures between these hones are so indistinct that they could not he represented in the drawing. 
