LIFE AND KINSHIP OP DINOSAURS. 597 



The artificiality of these limb-characters has been pointed out, and has been accepted 

 by the adoption, e.g., of the ordinal distinction of the IchthyoiAerygia from the Sauro- 

 pterygia;* also of the or^ev Labi/rinfhodontia,'[ as represented by Mastodonsaurus and 

 Phytosaurus, which latter genera, included in v. Meyer's Section, a, ' Vierzehige,' are 

 excluded from my order Crocodilia,X Whether any apology be necessary for the 

 substitution of the latter term for a defined ordinal group including half of the 

 representatives of von Meyer's " (a) Vierzehige" I leave to the judgment of unbiassed 

 palaeontologists, and proceed to cite the more definite ascription of taxonomical value 

 to the groups above defined proposed by von Meyer, in his useful compilation called 

 ' Palseologica,' 8vo, 1832. In this work the author prefixes to the class Reptilien (p. 101), 

 as to that of Mammalia (p. 44), his division of such classes into Orders. Those which 

 he adopts for the ' Reptilien ' are — 



"a. Chelonier. 



B. Saurier. 



c. Batrachier. 



D. Ophidier." 



This was the latest step in Palseontological ordinal classification wdth which I had 

 to contrast the ideas of the Reptilian orders acquired during the researches of which 

 the results were condensed in my 'Reports to the British Association' of 1840 and 

 1841. 



Von Meyer's subdivision of the Saurian order is based, as in his previous sketch in 

 the ' Isis,' upon the structure of the limbs : 



" A. Saurier mit Zehen, ahnlich denen andern lebenden Sauriern und zwar I. Vier- 

 zehige. II. Piinfzehige." 



"b. Saurier mit Gliedmassen ahnlich denen der schweren Landsaiigethiere. 1. 

 ]\Iegalosaurus, Bucliand. 2. Iguanodon, Mantell." 



"c. Saurier mit flossartigen Gliedmassen. 1. Ichthyosaurus, iTo/^^y. 2. Plesiosaurus, 

 Conybeare. 3. Mosasaurus, Conybeare. Streptospondylus, H. v. M.'' 



"d. Saurier mit Flughaut. Pterodactylus, Cuvier" (Op. cit., p. 201). 



In the characters of his subordinate group b. Von Meyer (lb., p. 210) condenses the 

 descriptions and accepts the determinations, clavicle included, of Buckland and Mantell. 

 There is no sign of his having examined any of the fossils on which these descriptions 

 and determinations were based. He is struck with a resemblance of the metapodial 

 bones of Meyalosaums in Buckland's plates with those of a hippopotamus ; and with the 

 size of one of these bones, " zweimal so breit als im Elephanten " of the Iguanodon ; and 

 may have deemed their feet, in like manner, to have been tetradactyle or pentadactyle. 



* " On the Orders of Fossil and Recent Reptilia." From the ' Report of the British Association for 

 tiie Advancement of Science' for 1859, 8vo, p. 159. 

 t lb., p. 158. 

 X lb., p. 164 ; and " Report on British Fossil Reptiles," op. cit. for 1841, 8vo, p. 63. 



