Contribution to the Anatomy of Hypsilophodon Foxii . An Account of some recently aquired Remains

Abstract

In 1849 a block of sandstone containing a considerable portion of a reptilian skeleton was found by some labourers on the south-west shore of the Isle of Wight, near Cowleaze Chine. It was broken in two; and one piece passed into the collection of the late Dr. G. Mantell, the other into that of Mr. Bowerbank. Subsequently both pieces were acquired by the British Museum and reunited. Thus completed, the slab exhibits a continuous chain of some 18 presacral vertebræ, succeeded by the right ilium, the middle of which is crushed and hidden by an imperfect metatarsus. Below this are some long slender bones, which have received different interpretations from distinguished anatomists; and behind these are the left femur and a series of 12 caudal vertebrae. In 1855 a description of this fossil, illustrated by a plate, was given by Professor Owen, in his ‘Fossil Reptiles of the Wealden Formations’ (vol. 1855, Older Dinosauria, p. 2), where it is entitled “Part of the Skeleton of a young Iguanodon, I. Mantelli ,”—a conclusion towards which the weight of evidence then seemed to incline. In 1867 Prof. Huxley, from a comparison of its vertebrae with those of Iguanodon , and from the presence of four metatarsals in the pes, concluded its generic distinctness from Iguanodon Mantelli ; and in 1870 he made it the subject of a communication to this Society. Prof. Huxley prefaced this paper by a detailed description of a small reptilian skull discovered by the Rev. W. Fox in the same stratum