i893. OWEN. 133 



discoveries of complete skeletons in America) that they belong to 

 more than one order of the reptilian class. 



The Anomodontia — those curious early Mesozoic reptiles com- 

 bining in their skeleton certain features now only known in amphibia 

 and mammalia — were also first recognised and defined by Owen, who 

 described a great number of forms from the Karoo deposits of Cape 

 Colony, beginning with Dicynodon in 1845, culminating in his exhaus- 

 tive Catalogue of the Fossil Reptilia of South Afyica (British Museum, 

 1876), and even further pursued in later paper*?. The discovery of 

 Rhynchosauyiis in the English Keuper was also the first evidence of 

 the order recognised by later observers as the Rhynchocephalia. 

 Moreover, the most elaborate series of descriptions of the Ichthyo- 

 sauria and Plesiosauria are due to Owen ; and he has made known 

 nearly all the principal British types of fossil Chelonia and Ophidia 

 hitherto described. His memoir on Dimovphodon marked a great 

 advance in knowledge of the Pterosaurian skeleton ; and his dis- 

 covery of the reptilian nature of Placodes and Stagonolepis (previously 

 regarded as fishes) was also an important step. 



Among contributions to the anatomy of birds, we may specially 

 refer to Owen's classical memoir on the apteryx, and his further 

 notices of the anatomical characters of the flamingo, pelican, gannet, 

 and hornbill, all published by the Zoological Society. His important 

 series of memoirs on the osteology of extinct birds, however, issued 

 by the same society, excel even his work on living forms, and we 

 need only recall his descriptions of the dodo and great auk, besides 

 his numerous memoirs on the Dinornithidae, on Aptornis, and on 

 Notornis from New Zealand. From the palaeontological standpoint, 

 too, Owen's monograph on Avclicsoptevyx — the long-tailed, toothed 

 bird from the Bavarian Lithographic Stone — ^is an epoch-making 

 work. Finally, he described Odontoptevyx, Aygillovnis, and Dasornis 

 from the London Clay. 



Among recent mammalia, the more striking of Owen's contribu- 

 tions relate to the monotremes and marsupials, and the recognition of 

 the two natural groups of typical Ungulata — the odd-toed (Perisso- 

 dactyla) and the even-toed (Artiodactyla) ; and mention ought also 

 to be made of his studies of the various apes. His attention seems 

 to have been first directed to the extinct mammalia when he under- 

 took the description of the fossils collected by Darwin in South 

 America during the voyage of the " Beagle." Toxodon was then 

 described, and thus provided the first clear evidence of an extinct 

 generalised hoofed animal ; according to Owen, indeed, this was a 

 " pachyderm, with affinities to the Rodentia, Edentata, and Her- 

 bivorous Cetacea." Macvauchenia, erroneously associated with the 

 camels, was also made known, and there were descriptions of new 

 gigantic sloths, Mylodon and Scelidothevimn. Almost at the same 

 time, too, Owen proved that Megatherium was not an armoured 

 animal, but that the dermal plates often ascribed to it really per- 



