568 190 [September 



IV 

 On the Restoration of some Extinct Reptiles 



THE exhibition of large diagrams in museum cases has met with 

 the disapproval of many who are in a position to give an 

 authoritative opinion ; but, by way of justification of such a practice, 

 it may be pointed out that it frequently happens in a museum 

 that, since it is only possible in rare instances to have cases 

 specially made to accommodate definite series of specimens, spaces 

 will occur which are a source of much trouble to the curators ; and 

 diagrams, from their elasticity of size, can always be relied upon 

 to fill what must otherwise be left blank. It is just such a 

 difficulty that has to be confronted in planning out some of the 

 cases at the Natural History Museum. The wall-cases, for instance, 

 on the south side of the third Bay on the left-hand side of the 

 Entrance Hall are devoted to the elucidation of the more important 

 features which are made use of in the classification of reptiles, and 

 contain stuffed specimens, casts, and skeletons, articulated and 

 disarticulated, of representative members of each order. But the 

 cases are ten feet in height, and the upper compartments are too 

 far removed from the eye of the observer, and too badly lighted, to 

 admit of the recognition of much detail in the specimens exhibited 

 there. The framework of the back of the case, also, is too slight 

 to bear heavy specimens, and it is here, if anywhere, that the 

 exhibition of wall-diagrams is justified. 



As complete skeletons of extinct reptiles of such a size as to 

 fit conveniently into these wall -cases without crowding out the 

 recent members of the class, or being lost among them by reason 

 of their diminutive size, are almost impossible to obtain ; and as 

 the disjointed parts of the skeleton of these extinct forms are 

 efficiently represented either by actual specimens or by casts in 

 the table-case, it was, when recently planning out this wall-case, 

 considered sufficient for the purposes of the Index Collection to 

 represent the Ornithosauria, the Ichthyopterygia, the Sauropterygia, 

 and the Anomodontia by bold diagrams of the whole skeleton of 

 one selected species of each, drawn to such a size as to fill the 

 four top spaces. The diagrams, which have now been completed 

 and are exhibited in the cases, measure about 27 inches in 

 height, and 41 inches in breadth. They are bold outline dia- 



