1037 
XXIII. Description of some Remains of the Gigantic Land-Lizard 
(Megalania prisca, Owen), from Australia. —Part II. 
By Professor Owen, C.B., F.R.S., &c. 
Received March 22,—Read April 15, 1880. 
[Plates 34-38.] 
In a former Part* the author submitted to the Royal Society evidences of the above 
Lacertian species, a contemporary in Australia with correspondingly large Marsupial 
Mammals, and which, with them, had become extinct. The remains of their cold¬ 
blooded associate, received in 1858, consisted of mutilated vertebrae. They had been 
imbedded in drift-deposits more or less compacted, which, when traversed by streams, 
had become broken up by the violence of the course to which Australian rivers are 
subject. During the alternate periods of drought, the river-beds are laid bare, and 
under these conditions the remains of Megalania already, and about to be, described, 
have been exclusively found. I have not received any specimen referable to the 
genus from the breccia-clefts and cave-deposits of Australia. 
Although the materials for restoration of the subject of the present and former 
papers are incomplete, especially in regard to the limbs, I am unwilling longer to defer 
communicating the results of study of such portions of the skeleton as have come into 
my hands during the last twenty years. 
The most common examples have been parts of the trunk, and among these was one 
entire dorsal vertebra,! of which figures are subjoined (Plate 34) of the natural size. 
This bone somewhat exceeds the largest of those previously described,! as the 
subjoined dimensions indicate :— 
1858. 
inches, lines. 
Length of centrum. 3 3 
„ non-articular lower surface of centrum 2 0 
Breadth of centrum. 1 11 
Vertical diameter to highest part of neural arch 3 4 
,, including neural spine. .... 
1880. 
inches, lines. 
3 G 
2 2 
2 0 
3 9 
5 9 
* Phil. Trans., Vol. 149, 1858, p. 43. 
f Transmitted by Dr. George Bennett, P.L.S., from Darling Downs, Queensland, 
t Loc. cit., Plate 7, figs. 1-4. 
