Zoological Society. 391 



f )aict«ess and extreme thinness oi the bones of the skull oi' tlie j^enus : 

 •thii fine longitudinal striae of the outer surface are more continuous 

 than in the Pt. Cuvieri, in which thej seem to be produ{;ed by a suc- 



•^fession of fine vascular orifices produced into grooves. Tiie conspi- 

 »icuous vascular orifices are almost all confined to the vicinity of the 

 alveoli in the Pt. co?npressirostris. This species belongs, more de- 

 cidedly than theP^. Cuvieri, to the ' longi rostral ' section of the JP/e- 

 rosauria : whether it had an edentulous prolongation of the fore ^art 

 of the upper and lower jaw remains to be proved. 



int In attempting to form a conception of the total length of the head 

 bf the very remarkable species of Pterodactyle represented by the 

 portions of jaw above described, we should be more justified by their 

 form in adopting the proportions of that of the Pt. longivostris than 

 in the case of the Pt. Cuvieri : but allowing that the external nostril 

 tnay have been of somewhat less extent than in the Pt. longirostris, 



>:tte may still assign a length of from fourteen to sixteen inches to the 



/j$kull of the Pterodactyle in question. :;;.: :!jr^;tu; . j ui 



•1^ It could not have been anticipated that thie fii^ithkiee portioiiHiof 

 Pterodactyl ian skull — almost the only portions that have yet been 

 discovered in the cretaceous formations — should have presented such 



-well-marked distinctive characters, one from the other, as are de- 

 scribed and illustrated in Mr.Iiowerbank's Memoirs and in the present 

 communication. Such, nevertheless, are the facts : and, however im- 

 probable it may appear, on the doctrine of chances, to those not con- 

 versant with the fixed relations of osteological and dental characters, 

 that the three corresponding parts of three Pterodactyles for the first 

 time discovered, should be appropriated to three distinct species, I 

 have no other alternative, in obedience to the indicafcioos of natuxe, 



-'than to adopt such determination*. H9;:^o.t losolo him 



b'jr* The same criticism or objection may be offered to the conclusions in the tcsxt, 



'as the following one, which was called forth by my determinations of the spedes 

 oi Balccnodon found in the red crag. "The specimens exhibited by I'rof. 11 ens- 

 low were only eleven in number ; so that, without allowing anything for the cir- 

 cumstance of each whale having two tympanic bones, and the probability of some 

 of the above being in pairs, we have the first twelve determinable cetaceous bones 

 discovered in the red crag appropriated to no less ihawfive species. I have no pre- 

 tensions to call in question the decision of Prof. Owen upon osteological grounds, 

 but I must own that' I am disposed, upon the doctrine of chances, to consider it 

 hardly probable that these determinations are accurate." — Scarles V. Wood, Feb. 

 16, 1844, London Geol. Journal, p. 35. The fifth species is a gratuitous addition 

 to the four described by me, the determinate characters of which have been con- 

 firmed by numerous additional discoveries. Mr. Wood should have remembered, 

 before he attempted to discredit the determinations from anatomy, and to substi- 

 tute the numerical test, that the second mammalian fossil from the oolite, although 

 a lower jaw, like the first, was of a different species, and that of five subsequently 

 discovered unequivocal mammalian remains from Stonesficld, «Ware parts of the 

 lower jaw, whilst two of them demonstrate a third species. Very improbable this 

 jtQ him, on the doctrine of chances; but only showing, as Sir Charles LycU Jays 



j,t,f marked, " the fragmentary manner in which the memorials of an ancient terfes^ 

 triaifauna are handed down to us.". , '- , .^ ; ; i '-^ni 



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