-gallery.] natural history. (Fossils.) 87 
The Case placed against the piers, between the windows of the 
E. wall of the room, contains a suite of varieties of wood opal from 
Van Diemen’s Land, presented by Mrs. Howley, the lady of His Grace 
the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
Room II. 
In the Wall Cases of Room II. are various mammalian remains, 
amongst which are numerous parts of the Megatherium, from Buenos 
Ayres: these will ultimately be removed to Room VI., where many of 
the specimens formerly in these cases are now deposited. In Case V. 
are arranged the portions of the carapace and other parts of the gigan¬ 
tic fossil "tortoise ( Colossochehjs Atlas ) discovered by Major Cautley, 
Bengal Artillery, in the Sewalik Hills, and formed part of the very ex¬ 
tensive collection presented by that gentleman to the Museum. On the 
upper shelf in Case III. are arranged the bones of various species of 
Dmornis, an extinct genus of birds, which formerly inhabited New 
Zealand_some of these bones, it will be seen, must have belonged to 
birds of most gigantic dimensions. In the Table Cases under the 
windows of this and the next room are temporarily deposited some 
mammalian remains. 
Room III. 
The Wall Cases I to 4 are set apart for the Batrachian, the Chelonian 
and Emydosaurian reptiles, now under arrangement. To the first 
named of these orders belongs the gigantic Salamander, the sub¬ 
ject of Scheuchzer’s dissertation, Homo diluvii testis et theoscopos. 
Various specimens illustrative of the Chelonians will also be placed 
in some of the Wall Cases of Room II. Among the specimens 
of the third of these orders may be specified the Crocodilian 
division, containing very interesting objects, such as specimens of 
the head, with other bones, of the gavial (or rather gharial) of 
Whitby, ( Teleosaurus Chapmanni ,) which, though correctly deter¬ 
mined by its discoverer, Capt. W. Chapman, and also by Wooller 
(Phil. Trans, for 1758), w T as subsequently mistaken for a species of 
Ichthyosaurus ;—another species of gharial (considered a distinct genus, 
bearing the name of JEolodon) from the lias at Monheim in Franconia, 
being the unique specimen described and figured by Soemmerring in 
the Memoirs of the Academy of Munich, under the name of Crocodilus 
prisons ;—ahead of Crocodilus Toliapicus, mentioned by Cuvier as Cro¬ 
codile de Sheppey , and which appears to be distinct from Crocodilus 
Spenceri, of which the original specimen is likewise deposited here; 
—the head and other parts of the Geosaurus (the Lacerta gigantea 
of Soemmerring) found together wdth the preceding, and figured 
and described by the last mentioned naturalist in the Transactions 
of the Academy of Munich;—the interesting groups embedded in tw r o 
1 slabs of limestone of the well knowm Swanage Crocodile (a distinct 
i genus) and one of the principal specimens of the Mantellian collection ; 
—the lower jaw and other parts of the cranium, vertebrae, &e., of the 
| huge reptile ( Mososaurus Sancti Petri ) from the St. Peter’s Mountain 
1 near Maestricht, presented, in 1784, by the celebrated Peter Camper, 
