568 190 [September 
LN, 
On the Restoration of some Extinct Reptiles 
HE exhibition of large diagrams in museum cases has met with 
the disapproval of many who are in a position to give an 
authoritative opinion; but, by way of justification of such a practice, 
it may be pointed out that it frequently happens in a museum 
that, since it is only possible in rare instances to have cases 
specially made to accommodate definite series of specimens, spaces 
will occur which are a source of much trouble to the curators; and 
diagrams, from their elasticity of size, can always be relied upon 
to fill what must otherwise be left blank. It is just such a 
difficulty that has to be confronted in planning out some of the 
cases at the Natural History Museum. The wall-cases, for instance, 
on the south side of the third Bay on the left-hand side of the 
Entrance Hall are devoted to the elucidation of the more important 
features which are made use of in the classification of reptiles, and 
contain stuffed specimens, casts, and skeletons, articulated and 
disarticulated, of representative members of each order. But the 
cases are ten feet in height, and the upper compartments are too 
far removed from the eye of the observer, and too badly lighted, to 
admit of the recognition of much detail in the specimens exhibited 
there. The framework of the back of the case, also, is too slight 
to bear heavy specimens, and it is here, if anywhere, that the 
exhibition of wall-diagrams is justified. 
As complete skeletons of extinct reptiles of such a size as to 
fit conveniently into these wall-cases without crowding out the 
recent members of the class, or being lost among them by reason 
of their diminutive size, are almost impossible to obtain; and as 
the disjointed parts of the skeleton of these extinct forms are 
efficiently represented either by actual specimens or by casts in 
the table-case, it was, when recently planning out this wall-case, 
considered sufficient for the purposes of the Index Collection to 
represent the Ornithosauria, the Ichthyopterygia, the Sauropterygia, 
and the Anomodontia by bold diagrams of the whole skeleton of 
one selected species of each, drawn to such a size as to fill the 
four top spaces. The diagrams, which have now been completed 
and are exhibited in the cases, measure about 27 inches in 
height, and 41 inches in breadth, They are bold outline dia- 
