728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



interesting, however, in affording a suggestion as to the possible steps 

 by which the toothbills, as regards the armature of their jaws, may 

 have passed into modern toothless birds. 



The Stonesfield slates have yielded up an almost entire skeleton of 

 a wonderful extinct form, unique as yet, described under the name of 

 Compsognathus, which possesses a singularly long neck supporting a 

 head whose structure is light, and, except in the possession of teeth, 

 birdlike. Its anterior limbs are small, while the leg-bone of its very 

 long hind-limb exhibits the prominent crest of which we have so often 

 spoken, a ridge on its outer side for the fibula, and the pulley-shaped 

 articular surface of its lower end identical in conformation with that 

 seen in the bird. This skeleton diverges from the bird type, however, 

 in the absence of a " merry-thought," and in having the single hock- 

 bone of the bird replaced by three distinct bones, fitting immovably 

 together, of which the trifid extremity of a fowl's, for example, indi- 

 cates the coalescence. The haunch-bone, moreover, indicates relation- 

 ship with the reptiles, in its form and in the manner in which it unites 

 below with its fellow of the opposite side a feature in which it agrees 

 with the arrangement of the corresponding bone in the crocodiles and 

 in the rheas. This strange creature, bird or reptile, " must, without 

 doubt," Prof. Huxley remarks, " have hopped or walked on its hind 

 limbs after the manner of a bird, to which its long neck, slight head, 

 and small anterior limbs, must have given it an extraordinary resem- 

 blance." There is reason for believing that it was possessed of a long 

 tail, which must have greatly helped to support it in the erect position. 



The extinct group to which this singular Stonesfield fossil has been 

 assigned contains some of the largest known terrestrial animals, such 

 as the carnivorous giant-lizard (Megalosaurns), thirty feet in length, 

 whose structure in many points resembles that of the bird, especially 

 in the form of its hip-girdle and hind-limbs, on which, in the late Prof. 

 Phillips's opinion, it moved with free steps, sometimes, if not habitually, 

 claiming a curious analogy, if not some degree of affinity, with the 

 ostrich. Another example is the still more gigantic herb-eating iguano- 

 don, from beds in Sussex, taller than an elephant and vaster in size, 

 wherein, also, are mingled avian and reptilian characters. In the form 

 of its vertebra, which, except in the neck, are double-cup-shaped, it is 

 reptilian in the absence of collar-bones it is non-avian ; but in the 

 formation of its three-toed hind limbs, which are larger than the fore, 

 as well as of the supporting haunch-bone, it is distinctly birdlike. 

 Again, it is unbirdlike in regard to its teeth, whose general form and 

 crenated edges are somewhat like the iguanas', which now frequent the 

 tropical woods of America and of the West Indies ; but they differ 

 from them in having a flat surface on the crown of the tooth, worn 

 down evidently by the process of mastication, whereas the herbivorous 

 reptiles of the present day clip and gnaw off, but do not chew, the vege- 

 table productions on which they feed. 



