GIGANTIC LAND-LIZARD FROM AUSTRALIA. 
553 
Tlie dermo-hsemal ossification (ib., ib., c) resembles the dermo-neural one (a) in a 
reversed position; its base is also excavated, and receives in a special depression the 
end of the haemal spine ; it is not situated exactly opposite the one above but is 
further back. In both bones the outer surface is finely rugose, the inner or concave 
surface is smooth. 
The dermo-lateral ossicles are oblong and sub-elliptic; similarly rugose externally, 
smooth in the inner surface, and not directly attached or applied to any part of the 
corresponding vertebra. In the segment selected for Plate 66, fig. 7—about the 
20th of the caudal series—the transverse processes of the vertebra have ceased to be 
developed. 
It is obvious that if these detached portions of the dermo-skeleton of a caudal 
segment of the Scelidosaur had been connected by continuous ossification in the 
intervening corium, a bony cylinder would have resulted, such as the extinct 
Megalania presents : but with the difference as regards the number of the outwardly 
projecting processes. 
The closer repetition of the Megalanian caudal character is presented by members of 
the Mammalian class. In the gigantic extinct species of the loricate family of the 
order Bruta forming the type of the genus Glyptodon* the extent of tail preserved 
measured in the specimen on which the genus was founded 3 feet 6 inches in length, 
and was inclosed in a defensive osseous sheath, showing an annular arrangement of 
the skin-bones. 
In the basal half of this sheath the constituent ossicles are arranged in segments, 
and each segment is composed of two annular series of ossicles, the proximal series 
presenting the rose-pattern of those of the main part of the carapace, the distal series 
of larger and more prominent ossicles repeating rather the character of the hinder 
marginal series of the carapaeial bones.t The constituent ossicles have more or less 
coalesced in each segment; and, of these, the seven basal rings remain distinct, 
allowing a certain extent of flexibility in that part of the tail. The terminal portion 
of the tail-sheath forms, as in Megcdania, one continuous osseous case, closed at the 
tip, near which it developes two lateral large and massive conical bosses, the apex 
being obtuse. A series of progressively smaller and less prominent lateral ones 
indicates six or more rings to have contributed to this bony sheath ; and smaller 
supplementary elliptical plates, above and below the larger lateral ones, complete the 
* ‘Appendix’ to Pakish (Sir Woodbine) ‘Buenos Ayres from the Conquest,’ 8vo., 1838, pp. 217 and 
433, plate 1 ; Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, March, 1839, p. 236 ; Trans. Zool. Soc. 
(2nd series), vol. vi., p. 81. 
t The figure of the carapace in my ‘ Catalogue of the Fossil Mammals in the Museum of the Royal College 
of Surgeons of England ’ is copied by Nodot (‘ Description d’un nouveau genre d’Edente fossiie,’ plate 4) : 
a more complete restoration of the entire exo-skeleton and exposed parts of the endo-skeleton forms the 
subject of plate 36 of the excellent work of Burmeister (German M. and Phil. D., Director of the Public 
Museum of Buenos Ayres), entitled ‘ Anales del Museo Publico de Buenos Ayres,’ 4to., 1870-1874. 
