28 . 
Now the species which I originally described under the name of 
Cimoliornis diomedeus comes precisely under this category: it has 
formed the groundwork of later generalizations, which have led to its 
being embraced by another genus. In this case the Committee of 
Nomenclature, whilst determining that the specific name should be 
retained, recommend that the describer should “append to the ori- 
ginal authority for the species, when not applying to the genus also, 
some distinctive mark, such as (sp.), implying an exclusive reference 
to the specific name.”’ In conformity with the above recommenda- 
tion, the gigantic species of Pterodactyle, of which parts have been 
described by Mr. Bowerbank, and parts previously by myself, would 
be entered into the Zoological Catalogues as follows :— 
Pterodactylus diomedeus, Owen (sp.), Proceedings of the Zoolo- 
gical Society, January 1851. 
Cimoliornis diomedeus, Tbid., British Fossil Mammals and Birds, 
p- 545, cuts 230, 231 (1843-1846). 
Osteornis diomedeus, Gervais, Thése sur les Oiseaux Fossiles, 8vo, 
p- 38 (1844). 
Pterodactylus giganteus, Bowerbank, Quarterly Journal of the 
Geological Society, vol. iv. p. 10. pl. 2. figs. 1 & 4 (1848). 
Leaving, however, the question of names, regarding which I have 
no personal feeling except that they should mdicate their objects 
without ambiguity or obvious impropriety, I proceed to lay before 
the same Society to which Mr. Bowerbank has communicated his last 
interesting and important discovery, similar evidence of a third spe- 
cies of Pterodactyle from the chalk, intermediate in size between the 
species of which the jaws were figured as the Pterodactylus giganteus 
in 1845, and the truly gigantic species which he has named Ptero- 
dactylus Cuviert. 
The specimens, which consist of two portions of the upper jaw, 
form part of that gentleman’s collection, and were in fact exhibited 
on the table, but unnoticed, at our last meeting, their true nature not 
having been recognised. The chief portion might well indeed be mis- 
taken, at first sight, for a crushed portion of an ordinary long bone ; 
and it was not until after a close comparison of several specimens of 
these rare and interesting remains of Pterodactyles, kindly confided 
to me by Mrs. Smith of Tonbridge Wells, Mr. Toulmin Smith of 
Highgate, Mr. Charles of Maidstone, and by Mr. Bowerbank him- 
self, for description in my forthcoming ‘ Monograph on the Fossil 
Reptiles of the Chalk,’ that I discovered them to be parts of a skull 
of an undescribed species of Pterodactyle. 
In order to make this understood, it will be necessary to premise a 
few words on the Pterodactyles in general, and on some of the cha- 
racters of the jaw of the Pterodactylus Cuvieri in particular. 
The Order Pterosauria includes species of flying reptiles so modi- 
fied in regard to the structure and proportions of the skull, the dis- 
position of the teeth, and the development of the tail, as to be refer- 
able even according to the partial knowledge we now possess of this 
once extensive group, to different genera. 
