1 82 Popidar Delusions in Natural History. [Sess. 



to continue and to propagate erroneous delusions in the minds 

 of the people as to matters of fact. 



Coming up a little higher in the scale of popular education 

 and intelligence, there is one interesting delusion with regard 

 to matters palseontological to which I would direct your atten- 

 tion for a few moments, — a delusion which owes its origin, I am 

 afraid, to a saying of the renowned Cuvier himself. It is to 

 this effect, that a skilful and practical comparative anatomist 

 may from the examination of a single bone of an extinct 

 vertebrate animal reconstruct the skeleton of the entire 

 creature. It is true that from a single bone, or from a few 

 bones, we may often learn much regarding the affinities of the 

 animal concerned, but reconstruct it — no, not until we have 

 got the whole or nearly the whole of its skeleton together. 

 It is only necessary to point to a couple of the remarkable 

 blunders which have been made in the way of restoration of 

 extinct animals from insufficient material. Before the skeleton 

 of Iguanodon, the huge herbivorous reptile of the Wealden, 

 was thoroughly known, Mr Waterhouse Hawkins constructed 

 a " restoration " of it, which is, I believe, still to be seen in 

 the gardens of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, in which it 

 was represented as an animal walking on all fours with nearly 

 equal legs, and with a horn in its nose like a rhinoceros. 

 Absolutely complete skeletons of Iguanoclon have, however, 

 since turned up in the Wealden of Belgium, which show that, 

 reptile as it was, it had a figure not unlike that of a huge 

 kangaroo with comparatively small fore-limbs, and enormous 

 hind ones, upon which it must in all probability have been in 

 the habit of standing. As for its horn, it possessed no such 

 ornament, Mr Hawkins having placed upon its forehead the 

 terminal joint or claw of one of its digits • 



It may, however, be said that Hawkins was not a man 

 of very high position in the scientific world ; but the same 

 cannot be averred regarding the late Sir Bichard Owen, who 

 may be said to have been the most eminent comparative 

 anatomist after the time of Cuvier. Because he found that 

 the skull of the large Triassic Labyrintlwdon, in which he 

 included Mastodonsaurus of Jaeger, was amphibian in its 

 character, he rushed to the conclusion that the animal was 

 frog-like in its form ; and rushing also to the conclusion that 



