Mr. H. Scelcy on the Literature of English Pterodactyles. 119 



of Prof. Owen (Brit. Ass. 1858) and Prof. Huxley (Quart. Journ. 

 Geol. Soc. 1859) both refer chiefly to a second specimen in the 

 British Museum. 



Dr. Buckland's account of the animal is too meagre to be of 

 much service, and so inaccurate that it is much to be regretted 

 that the eminent anatomists who have written on Pterodactyles 

 have not done justice to remains scarcely less interesting than 

 the Archazopteryx. 



I will go seriatim through such parts of Prof. Buckland's 

 description as need comment. 



Neck (marked a). The impression of this part of the skeleton, 

 as given in the plate, tapers. The vertebras are very long, and 

 so slender as to be no thicker than an ordinary phalange, and 

 not half the diameter of the dorsal vertebras. It is moreover 

 bordered on each side with a band of fine bony tendons. Now, 

 in all the subclass Saurornia known to me, whether of the sec- 

 tion Pterosauria or Rhamphosauria, the neck-vertebras are not 

 only longer than those of the back, but also, instead of being 

 thinner, they are thicker. Such a neck could not have supported 

 the. large head which the Dimorphodon possessed. Moreover 

 the broad belt of bony supports on each side of the vertebras is 

 eminently characteristic of the long stiff tails of the Rhampho- 

 sauria, to which the genus Dimorphodon belongs ; and if these 

 supposed neck-vertebras are compared with the tail-vertebras of 

 Rhamphorhynchus, they correspond exactly. Therefore what 

 has been described as the neck is really the tail. 



Vertebrae. That at C, described as showing a " convex articu- 

 lating surface, as in the Crocodile," is so broken that nothing 

 can be made of it. Buckland's figure makes it concave. Now, 

 as Prof. Owen has everywhere* described the Saurornia as 

 having procoelian vertebras, I will state what may be seen in 

 Dimorphodon. The anterior end of a vertebra is distinguished 

 by the facets of the zygapophyses looking upward or inward, 

 while the posterior zygapophyses look downward or outward. 



The vertebra marked b' is, from its neural arch, clearly a 

 dorsal. It shows the articular surface of the centrum, which is 

 concave, though not deeply cupped ; and the zygapophyses look 

 downward. It is therefore concave behind. The dorsal vertebra 

 at d is also concave behind. In the vertebra marked a', which 

 in proportions is like a dorsal, though it is in juxtaposition with 

 some of the elongated caudals, the articular surface is concave, 

 and the zygapophyses look up ; therefore it is concave in front. 

 The vertebra at b has a rounded centrum and the length of a 

 dorsal, and is clearly concave at both ends. Thus the dorsal 



* Brit. Assoc. 1859 ; Phil. Trans. 1859 ; Palseontographicas, 1859-60 ; 

 Palaeontology, 1862, &c. 



