eA ASIN INCAC IES 
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
[THIRD SERIES. ] 
No. 101. MAY 1866. 
XXXVII.—An Epitome of the Evidence that Pterodactyles are 
not Reptiles, but a new Subelass of Vertebrate Animals allied 
to Birds (Saurornia). By Harry Srerzy, Esq.* 
Baron Cuvier assumed that Pterodactyles were Reptiles, and 
as reptiles they have since been described. It was by no rigorous 
determination such as modern science would give that the great 
master assigned to the tribe of Saurians this extinct group of 
animals. Other authors have referred them to mammals, to 
reptiles, and to birds; but Cuvier, regarding the latter hypo- 
thesis as scarcely worth notice, devoted much of his demonstra- 
tion to proving that they were not mammals, and much of it to 
assuming that therefore their structure was reptilian. Of course 
there is some truth in this, as there is sure to be in every con- 
viction of Cuvier’s; and facts were then more favourable to such 
a view than they are in the eyes of modern discovery. But the 
evidence on which Cuvier relied was furnished chiefly by two 
individuals, neither of which showed the details of structure 
seen in Cambridge specimens; hence it will not be surprising 
if the facts which suggested the reptilian hypothesis prove, on 
examination, to point to another conclusion. 
Quoting from the new edition of the ‘Ossemens Fossiles’ 
(that of 1824), in Cuvier’s own words, we shall endeavour to 
illustrate the results at which he arrives. 
First, then, he says—~ Ayant encore porté mon attention sur 
le petit os eylmdrique marqué g [i. e. os quadratum] qui va du 
crane a l’articulation des machoires, je me crus muni de tout ce 
qui étoit nécessaire pour classer ostéologiquement notre animal 
parmi les reptiles.’ The exact relations of the quadrate bone 
are not seen in either Cuvier’s or Von Meyer’s figures of Péero- 
* The substance of this paper was communicated to the Cambridge 
Philosophical Society, as part of a monograph of Pterodactyles, read 
March 7 and May 2 & 16, 1864. 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 8. Vol. xvii. 21 
