Further Observations upon Hyperodapedon Gordoni .

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Abstract
It is now twenty-nine years since, in describing those remains of Stagonolepis Robertsoni from the Elgin Sandstones which enabled me to determine the reptilian nature and the crocodilian affinities of that supposed fish, I indicated the occurrence in the same beds of a Lacertilian reptile, to which I gave the name of Hyperodapedon Gordoni . I laid stress upon the “marked affinity with certain Triassic reptiles” (e. g. Rhynchosaurus ) of Hyperodapedon , and I said that these, “when taken together with the resemblance of Stagonolepis to Mesozoic Crocodilia,” led me “to require the strongest stratigraphical proof before admitting the Palæozoic age of the beds in which it occurs”. Many Fellows of the Society will remember the prolonged discussions which took place, in the course of the ensuing ten or twelve years, before the Mesozoic age of the reptiliferous sandstones of Elgin was universally admitted. Hyperodapedon was destined to play no inconsiderable part in the controversy. Some ten years after the discovery of the original specimen, remains referable to the same genus were found in strata of unquestionably Triassic age in Central and Southern England; and, about the same time, I received abundant evidence of the occurrence of Hyperodapedon , associated with Dicynodonts, Crocodilia, and Labyrinthodonts, in certain Indian rocks which, on other grounds, were strongly suspected to belong to the oldest Mesozoic series. An account of these new materials, together with a full description of the original specimen of Hyperodapedon , was read before the Society and published in the ‘Quarterly Journal’ for 1869.

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