GIGANTIC LAND-LIZARD FROM AUSTRALIA. 
1047 
skull and sacrum ; of these, 14 support movable ribs, leaving four “ cervical” and three 
“lumbar.” The two sacral vertebra have sub-depressed centrums, and send outward 
long and strong costal processes (Plate 35, fig. 5), which converge to abut against the 
vertical ilium. The tail includes about 20 vertebra, many of which (ib., fig. G) support 
a haemal arch and spine ( hs ) upon a pair of hypapophvses near the hind ball of the 
centrum. The costal vertebra (Plate 34, figs. 3 and 4) are miniature repetitions of 
those in Megalania: the anterior cup and posterior ball show a similar shape and 
obliquity of position. The neural arch has coalesced with the centrum, which is 
relatively to the spine rather longer. The rib articulates with a single tubercle 
beneath the pre-zygapophysis. Of the ribs, the fifth to the ninth inclusive are 
connected by progressively lengthening hsemapophyses to the margins of a broad 
sternum. Both fore and hind limbs are pentadactyle • and unguiculate. The third 
and fourth digits are longest; the hind foot is rather longer and narrower than the 
fore foot, but both show the short Agamian proportions. 
A fossil fragment of flat bone, with a moderately convex border roughened as for 
the attachment of cartilage, 9 inches in breadth and 2 inches in thickness at the 
narrower fractured end, best corresponds with the expanded end of the scapula 
supporting the gristly superscapula in Moloch. This massive portion of bone was 
transmitted, with vertebrae of Megalania, from the neighbourhood of Melbourne by 
F. M. Baynal, Esq., in 1862. 
In the Supplement, No. IX., of a ‘ Monograph on the Fossil Reptilia of the Wealden 
and Purbeck Formations,’* I described and figured certain fossils from the ‘feather¬ 
bed’ sub-division of the latter locality. From their number and the association of 
these fossils, called “ granicones,” + with unquestionable remains of Lacertians, I con¬ 
ceived that they were, most probably, the osseous supports of horny developments of 
the integument, affording the extinct Nuthetes a defensive armour, like that of the Molocli 
horridus; and I alluded to the association of Marsupial Mammals with such fossils as 
supporting the interpretation suggested by the smaller Lizard, now living at the 
Antipodes in like Mammalian association. The dermal interpretation of the osseous 
“granicones” was further supported by their intimate texture, the evidences of which 
were submitted to the Royal Microscopical Society of London. I 
In the investigation of the structure of the horns and spines of Moloch horridus it 
was found that the density of the supporting cones of fibrous curium was not aug¬ 
mented by bone-deposits, but indications of such decussatory fibrous structure in the 
ossified cones were plain. 
In the huge extinct horned Lizard of Australia the horn-cores, as we have seen, are 
ossified, and the texture of the bone, as revealed by the microscope in thin transparent 
* Volume of tlie Palseontograpfiical Society, issued 1879, 4to. 
f Op. cit., p. 15, Plate 11, figs. 17-21. 
J Journal of tire Royal Microscopical Society, 8vo, vol. i, 1878, p. 233, Plates 12, 13. 
