II. Description of some remains of a gigantic land-lizard ( Megalania prisca , Ow.) from Australia

The subject of this communication forms part of a collection of fossil remains from Australia, recently acquired by the British Museum, and demonstrates the former existence in that continent of a land-lizard considerably surpassing in bulk the largest species now known. The characters are chiefly derived from vertebrae, partially fossilized, equalling in size those of the largest existing Crocodiles; they are of the ‘procœlian’ type, but present lacertian modifications, and closely agree with those in the great existing ‘Lacelizard' of Australia (Hydrosaurus giganteus , Gray), of which individuals upwards of six feet long have been taken. A generic or subgeneric distinction is indicated by the comparatively contracted area of the neural canal, and by the inferior development of the neural spine, of the fossil vertebræ, which have belonged to an individual not less than twenty feet in length, calculated from the vertebræ and proportions of the body of the existingHydrosauri . For this, probably extinct lizard, the name ofMegalania prisca is proposed. The results of an extended series of comparisons of its vertebræ with those of recent and extinct Sauria are given; and the paper is illustrated by drawings of the vertebræ ofMegalania and those ofHydrosaurus .