280 NATURAL SCIENCE. Oct., 



would not otherwise fit in with the orthodox view. Owen was a 

 strong opponent of the Dinosaurian-ancestry theory, and his figure 

 was valuable evidence in favour of the Pterodactyle-ancestry view 

 which he maintained. Is it right that Zittel should so falsify that 

 figure as to make it tell the other way, and then describe the 

 mutilated figure as " nach Owen," thus ascribing to Owen a view 

 which he strongly opposed ? 



The falsification of the figure is a typical example of the inevitable 

 results of " pinning one's faith to a creed," the creed being, in this 

 case, the orthodox view that the three digits in an ordinary bird's 

 wing are I, II, and III. 



SUMMARY. 

 Archroptevyx was a winged quadruped, probably arboreal in habit. 



The photograph accompanying this essay shows the primary quills to 

 have been supported by none of the first three digits, and 

 justifies, if it does not even prove, the view that those quills 

 were supported by the digits IV and V (or one of them). 

 Portions of these large digits were figured by Owen thirty 

 years ago, and they are seen in the London specimen and are 

 quite unlike anything seen on the surface of the Berlin speci- 

 men, in which these digits probably still lie hidden. 



This justifies the belief that the two large digits in an ordinary bird's 

 wing are IV and V, and that the ala spuria is a vestige of one 

 or more of the other three digits of the pentadactyle fore 

 limb. 



The argument against the view that birds are descended from Ptero- 

 dactyles is, therefore, worthless so far as it rests upon the 

 assumption that the large digits of the bird's wing are 

 II and III. 



The " ornithic " characters of Dinosaurs do not justify the view that 

 birds are descended from these reptiles : for the oldest known 

 bird is devoid of those " ornithic " characters. 



Compsognathus may form a connecting link (but not, of course, in the 

 direct line) between some unknown " ratite " birds on one 

 hand, and the great Dinosaurs on the other, but only if these 

 be regarded as "degenerate" and overgrown descendants of 

 birds which had lost the power of flight. 



Careless transcription of a pre-Darwinian statement (which was 

 perfectly true) into post-Darwinian treatises has given the 

 statement a new and false meaning. 



Uncritical plagiarism has rendered the false statement an integral 

 part of almost every modern treatise on the subject. 



The false idea expressed in that statement after transcription has 

 dominated the minds of even those (10, n) who wrote with 

 Archicoptevyx before their eyes, and the absurdity of a corollary 

 of that idea has induced some (12) to issue a figure so falsified 



