cast of a mandible, which I have described ('Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,' 1858, vol. xv. p. 454) as probably appertaining to Stagonolepis, did not belong to that reptile, the teeth of which possess short and comparatively obtuse crowns. I think it more than probable that this mandible, with its great recurved and pointed teeth, which had large pulp-cavities and were implanted in distinct alveoli, may have belonged to a Dinosaurian reptile.
I know of no further evidence of the existence of Dinosauria in rocks of Triassic age in Western Europe than that which I have now brought forward; but it is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of, at fewest, two genera in the German Trias, and of three in that of Britain.
3. Dinosauria from the Trias of the Ural Mountains and India.
In the extreme east of Europe, namely in the Ural Mountains, there is a series of rocks which have been supposed to be Permian, but which there now appears to be every reason to consider to be of Triassic age. Remains of reptiles associated with those of Labyrinthodonts from these rocks have been described and figured by D'Eichwald ('Lethæa Rossica') and by Von Meyer (Palæontographica, Bd. xv.). Now the teeth and jaws of the Deuterosaurus of D'Eichwald, no less than the vertebræ which are referred to the same genus by this author, have a strongly Dinosaurian aspect; and though the evidence is incomplete, I am greatly inclined to think that Deuterosaurus is a Dinosaurian. But the specially interesting feature of the Ural Triassic fauna is the association with the Labyrinthodonts and possible Dinosauria, of the Rhopalodon, so singular for its great canine tusks, in front of and behind which were comparatively small "incisors" and "molars;" for no one who compares Rhopalodon with the Galesaurus of Prof. Owen, from the Dicynodont-yielding sandstones of South Africa, can fail to see that the two forms are closely allied.
On the other hand, Von Meyer describes humeri and portions of crania from the same deposits, the nearest resemblance to which he finds in the corresponding parts of the skeleton of Dicynodon itself. Thus there is a clear affinity between the Triassic fauna of the Ural and that of South Africa. But in the Ural we have reached a point halfway between the West of England and Central India. I have already ("Palæontologica Indica," in 'Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India,' 1865) shown reason for the belief that the Central- Indian and the African faunæ of the "Poikilitic" period were closely allied; and I have described a small Thecodont Saurian (Ankistrodon) from the Indian beds. Thanks to Professor Oldham (the Director of the Indian Survey), I am now enabled to go a step further; for among the remains which last reached me from him there are portions of a Crocodilian closely allied to Belodon; and thus the Indian fauna, together with that of the Ural, binds the Triassic fauna of Western Europe with that of Africa[1].
- ↑ A fragment of a jaw from Malédi reminds me forcibly of Rhopalodon.
