On Thecospondylus Daviesi (Seeley), with some Remarks on the Classification of the Dinosauria

In the Fox Collection in the British Museum is the anterior third of a vertebra, with the number R/181 from the Wealden Beds of Brook, in the Isle of Wight, which indicates an animal of a type which hitherto has had but one other representative in Europe. With his usual acumen Mr. William Davies, F.G.S., recognized it as being the cervical vertebra of an animal closely allied to the genus Cœlurus of Marsh. No one would have been more competent than that veteran palæontologist to have written its history; and if I gladly undertake the task, it is because it enables me to suggest this honour to the work of a distinguished pioneer, whose labours on the Fossil Vertebrata have smoothed the way and facilitated the studies of every student of the National Collections for the last quarter of a century. Imperfect as the specimen is, it may serve as a nucleus round which knowledge will accumulate, until the genus becomes as well known as the larger Wealden reptiles. The centrum is elongated, compressed from side to side, with a flattened base, and flattened subquadrate anterior articular face, with the sides of the face prolonged backwards as subparallel sides, and as a ventral surface which is subparallel to the neural canal. The cervical ribs are co-ossified with the centrum and neural arch. The bony tissue, not unlike that of Ornithosaurs for its relative thickness, forms a dense external film, which defines the form of the