On Rhamphorhynchus Bucklandi , a Pterosaurian from the Stonesfield Slate

Abstract

Since the description of the fossils belonging to this species of Pterosaurian which originally came into my possession, I have met with so much additional material, that I have thought it better completely to remodel the present Memoir, than to add the subsequently acquired information in cumbrous notes. Some time ago, the Earl of Ducie was good enough to place in my hands, for description, a portion of a lower jaw, about 3½ inches in length, which was obtained from a quarry known by the name of ldSmith's Quarry,” at Sarsden, near Chipping Norton, in Oxfordshire. Bones of Pterosaurians abound in this locality, associated with remains of Megalosaurus and of Oolitic fishes; and Lord Ducie considers that the beds in which his fossil was discovered are the representative of the Stonesfield slate. In this conclusion, I find, my colleagues of the Geological Survey concur. The symphysial part of the lower jaw in question, and the whole of what remains of the right ramus, are extremely well preserved (Pl. XXIV. figs. l a , 1 b .); but the inferior part of the left ramus is broken away at a distance of about an inch behind the symphysis. The latter measures ⅞ of an inch in length, and exhibits no suture. Its posterior boundary is nearly a quarter of an inch thick and looks downwards as well as backwards. The distance between the two edges of the rami opposite the posterior extremity of the symphysis is fifteen-sixteenths of an inch, the depth of a ramus measured