Cope.] 252 [January 20. 



they are known, appear on the contrary, to have belonged to a sort 

 of contracted fin, as in the Doljihinsor Plesiosaurians. Of the differ- 

 ent bones of the feet, figured in the Ossemens Fossiles, after Camper, 

 Cuvier Hkens some of them to the principal carpal bones of the 

 crocodile; another appeared to belong to some huge saurian, some are 

 phalanges, and two are attributed by him to turtles, whose remains 

 are not less common in the deposits containing those of the Mosa- 

 saurus. In conclusion, Cuvier adds that " it was not without hesita- 

 tion that he expressed the conjectures from mere figures, when the 

 immediate comparison of the bones themselves would scarcely suffice, 

 so great is their diversity, and so small the precision of their forms in 

 reptiles." 



Goldfuss describes and figures several bone fragments from the de- 

 posits of the cretaceous period of the Upper Missouri, which he views 

 as the portion of a scapula, a coracold bone, and an olecranon process 

 of the Mosasaurus. In relation to the habits of the animal, he says, 

 that as it lived in the ocean the toes no doubt were webbed, but the 

 remains which have been discovered, on the contrary, do not lead to the 

 supposition that it possessed fins, like the Icthyosauria. Prof. Owen, 

 after remarking that no part of the organization of Mosasaurus is so 

 little known as that of the locomotive extremities, and substantially 

 quoting the views of Cuvier expressed above, enters into the descrip- 

 tion of some long bones of the extremities, " showing the lacertilian 

 type of structure," which were obtained in the Green-sand formation 

 of New Jersey. Prof. Owen says, " on the highly probable supposi- 

 tion that these bones belong to Mosasaurus, they indicate the extrem- 

 ities of that gigantic lizard to have been organized according to the 

 type of the existing Lacertilia, and not of the Enaliosauria or Cetacea." 

 Pictet says the humerus of Mosasaurus is thick and short, like that of 

 Icthyosaurus, but gives no evidence for this assertion. He adds, we 

 may conjecture, from the flattening of the bones of the members, 

 that the feet were probably converted into fins like those of the 

 Enaliosaurians.^ Finally Leidy (Cretaceous Reptiles, 42) states that 

 " remains, apparently of Mosasaurus, which I have had the opportu- 

 nity of examining, indicate the limbs to have been fins, partaking 

 in their structure of the characters of those of the marine turtle and 

 the Plesiosaurus." 



An anonymous writer in the Geological Magazine for 1868, com- 

 menting on this view, remarks that " admitting the lacertilian affin- 



* Leidy, Cretaceous Reptiles, 41. 



