Mr. H. Seeley on the Literature of English Pterodactyles. 151 



without remarking that, if he and Buckland were both right, 

 their specimens must belong to different genera. 



Fibula. It is remarked that " the left tibia is compressed so 

 as to give a false appearance of a fibula." It, however, seems 

 clear to me that the fibula is anchylosed at its proximal end 

 with the tibia (o') } that after half an inch it becomes free, and 

 continues so for more than an inch, when it again becomes 

 anchylosed, and gradually thins away. The fibula is a slender 

 bone, and exactly corresponds with the fibula in birds. 



As we are indebted to the untiring industry of Prof. Owen 

 for nearly all that has been written on Cretaceous Pterodactyles, 

 it would be impossible to pass over labours which have tended 

 so greatly to illustrate the osteology of these animals. I will 

 therefore add a few elucidatory notes. 



In a memoir in the ' Transactions of the Royal Society' for 

 1859, p. 162, Prof. Owen says, "From observations made on 

 species of Pterosauria, extending from the period of the Lias (as 

 exemplified by Dimorphodon macronyx) to the Upper Greensand 

 (as exemplified by Pterodactylus Sedgwickii and P. Fittoni), I am 

 now able to state that, with respect to the cervical and dorso- 

 lumbar vertebrae, the terminal articular surfaces of the vertebral 

 bodies are simply concave anteriorly, convex posteriorly, and 

 that they consequently manifest the earliest instance of the 

 proccelian type." And again, at the close of the memoir, it is 

 asserted that the cervical vertebrae of Dimorphodon present the 

 same type of structure (p. 168) as those from the Upper Green- 

 sand. If my determination by the zygapophyses is correct, 

 this is certainly erroneous ; for in Dimorphodon the cervicals 

 are opisthoccelian, while the dorsals are clearly concave behind, 

 and appear to be biconcave. In the ' Manual of Palaeontology/ 

 p. 273, 2nd edition, it is asserted that there is no evidence of 

 Dimorphodon macronyx having had a long tail. But, as I have 

 shown that the tail of this genus is like that of the Rhampho- 

 sauria, it is evident that Prof. Owen has not recognized either 

 the tail or the neck *. And, on the authority of this assumption 

 that the vertebral characters of the Greensand Pterodactyles 

 were constant throughout the class f, the following note is 

 added to the paper in the ' Phil. Trans/ : — " Von Meyer was led 

 to believe, from the crushed P. Gemmingi, that both articular 

 surfaces of the bodies of cervicals were concave, and that the 

 hinder surface of a dorsal was not convex ; but the error was 

 due to the state of the specimen." I fail to find any evidence 

 of error. 



It is always stated (as, for instance, in the ' Palaeontology/ 



* See 1st Supplement to Cret. Rep. p. 7 ; and Brit. Assoc. Rep. 1858. 

 t See ' Palaeontology,' p. 270. 



