III. 

 The Wing of Archaeopteryx. 



Part II. 



I PROPOSE now to comment briefly upDn a few of what seem to 

 me to be the most important restorations hitherto made. 



That of Professor (afterward Sir Richard) Owen first claims 

 attention. This was the result of a careful study of the then recently- 

 discovered fossil now in the British Museum. Bearing in mind the 

 very fragmentary condition of the manus, this restoration must be 

 admitted to be an exceedingly shrewd one. (See Figg. i and 2.) 



We are told (14) that the " hand of Archa^opteryx, besides being 

 concerned in supporting the remiges or quill feathers of a wing, also 

 supported two moderately long and slender free digits, each terminated 

 by a strong, curved, and sharp-pointed claw. . . . The parts 

 of the present skeleton show a certain amount of dislocation, and one 

 of the claw- bearing digits may have belonged to the left [i.e., right] 

 wing." In the accompanying restoration, digit I. will accordingly 

 be found to be marked with a ?, a doubt probably engendered by 

 the obvious difficulty of accommodating the necessary carpal and 

 metacarpal bones. We may, I think, safely predict that if Owen had 

 had an opportunity of examining both the London and Berlin fossils 

 at the same time, he would have given the London specimen a 

 tridactyle manus, making his digit L do duty for the penultimate 

 and ungual phalanx of his digit IIL ; thus the wings of the two 

 fossils would have been found to be precis :ly similar. 



Of the Berlin example I wish to draw attention to at least six resto- 

 rations. The first of these is that of Professor Vogt (20). In describ- 

 ing the manus he says : " The carpus shows only a single spherical 

 bone." " On each manus (there are) three long slender digits, armed 

 with claws" "... the radial digit or pollex (i) is the shortest, 

 the other two are nearly of equal length, but the second is longest. 

 These two digits were evidently united by tendinous and close apo- 

 neuroses ; for in each manus these digits are placed in the same 

 way, the one over-riding the other. The pollex is composed of a 

 short metacarpal, a pretty long phalanx, and a terminal claw-bearing 

 phalanx ; the other two digits have, besides the metacarpal, three 

 normal phalanges. The remiges were fixed to the ulnar side of the 



