In the year 1832 Dr. Mantell added to the wonderful discoveries he had
made in the Weald of Sussex, that of the great Lizard-of-the-woods, the
_hylæosaurus_ (ὑλη, _wood_, σαυρος, _lizard_). This discovery was made
in Tilgate forest, near Cuckfield, and the animal appears to have been
from twenty to thirty feet in length. The osteological characters
presented by the remains of the Hylæosaurus are described by Dr. Mantell
as affording another example of the blending of the Crocodilian with the
Lacertian type of structure; for we have, in the pectoral arch, the
scapula or omoplate of a crocodile associated with the coracoid of a
lizard. Another remarkable feature in these fossils is the presence of
the large angular bones or spines, which, there is reason to infer,
constituted a serrated crest along the middle of the back; and the
numerous small oval dermal bones which appear to have been arranged in
longitudinal series along each side of the dorsal fringe.
The _Megalosaurus_, the earliest appearance of which is among the more
ancient beds of the Liassic and Oolitic series, is again found at the
base of the Cretaceous rocks. It was, as we have seen, an enormous
lizard, borne upon slightly raised feet; its length exceeded forty feet,
and in bulk it was equal to an elephant seven feet high.
[Illustration: Fig. 137.--Lower Jaw of the Megalosaurus.]
[Illustration: Fig. 138.--Tooth of Megalosaurus.]
The Megalosaurus found in the ferruginous sands of Cuckfield, in Sussex,
in the upper beds of the Hastings Sands, must have been at least sixty
or seventy feet long. Cuvier considered that it partook both of the
structure of the Iguana and the Monitors, the latter of which belong to
the Lacertian Reptiles which haunt the banks of the Nile and tropical
India. The Megalosaurus was probably an amphibious Saurian. The
complicated structure and marvellous arrangement of the teeth prove that
it was essentially carnivorous. It fed probably on other Reptiles of
moderate size, such as the Crocodiles and Turtles which are found in a
fossil state in the same beds. The jaw represented in Fig. 137 is the
most important fragment of the animal we possess. It is the lower jaw,
and supports many teeth: it shows that the head terminated in a straight
muzzle, thin and flat on the sides, like that of the _Gavial_, the
Crocodile of India. The teeth of the Megalosaurus were in perfect accord
with the destructive functions with which this formidable creature was
endowed. They partake at once of the nature of a knife, sabre, and saw.
Vertical at their junction with the jaw, they assume, with the increased
age of the animal, a backward curve, giving them the form of a
gardener’s pruning-knife (Fig. 138; also _c._ Fig. 179). After
mentioning some other particulars, respecting the teeth, Buckland says:
“With teeth constructed so as to cut with the whole of their concave
edge, each movement of the jaws produced the combined effect of a knife
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