216 THE ANATOMY OF YERTEBRATED ANIMALS. 



are attached are raised into tubercles ; and, by degrees, these 

 become elongated into distinct capitular and tubercular pro- 

 cesses, between which, in the third to the ninth vertebrse, the 

 neurocentral suture passes. But in the tenth and in the elev- 

 enth vertebrse, the capitular process, which lies nearer the 

 neurocentral suture in the posterior than in the anterior cervi- 

 cal vertebrae, rises upon the body of the vertebra to the level 

 of the neurocentral suture, bv which it is traversed, and the 

 tubercular process becomes longer than it. (See Fig. 5, p. 19.) 

 The terminal cartilage is united with the sternum by a sternal 

 rib, which may become more or less completely converted into 

 a cartilage-bone, and is articulated with the vertebral rib. 



In the twelfth vertebra a sudden change in the character 

 of the transverse processes takes place. There is no longer a 

 capitular, distinct from a tubercular, process, but one long 

 " transverse process " takes the place of both. A sort of step 

 in the base of this process bears the capitulum of the rib, and 

 answers to the capitular process of the cervical vertebrse, Avhile 

 the outer end of the process articulates with the tuberculum 

 of the rib, and represents the tubercular process. The neuro- 

 central suture, in this and the succeeding dorsal vertebrae, lies 

 below the root of the transverse process, which, therefore, is 

 w^hoUy a product of the neural arch. Neither the capitular 

 processes, nor that part of the dorsal transverse process which 

 represents them, have distinct centres of ossification.* 



In the succeeding dorsal vertebrse the " step " of the trans- 

 verse process gradually moves outward, until at length it be- 

 comes confounded with the tubercular facet, and a correspond- 

 ing change takes place in the proximal ends of the ribs, in the 

 hindermost of w^hich the distinction between capitulum and 

 tuberculum is lost. 



The lumbar vertebrae have long transverse processes which 

 arise from the neural arches, i. e., above the neurocentral su- 

 ture. 



The centra of the two sacral vertebrse have their applied 

 and firmly-united faces flat, their free faces concave ; conse- 

 quently, the first has the anterior face concave and the poste- 

 rior flat, w^hile the second has the anterior surface flat and the 

 posterior concave. Each sacral vertebra has a strong rib ex- 

 panded at its distal end ; and wedged in at its proximal end, 



* Thus, if it be apart of tlie definition of a '-'• parajyopliyds^'' tliat it is anto- 

 eenous, there are no parapophyses in the vertebras ot the Crocodilia ; and if it 

 be part of the definition of a " parapophysis " that it arises from the centrum, 

 the dorjjal vertebraR of the Crocodilia nave no parapophyses. 



