154 Prof. H. G. Seeley. The Shoulder Girdle and [June 



'nal 



for he states, " the recess between the truncated antero-externa 

 corner of the coracoid and the adjacent antero-inferior angle of the 

 scapula, both which parts bear, as Professor H. Gr. Seeley says, the 

 mark of having had cartilage attached to them, is just the situation 

 where a wider band of synchondrosial cartilage might be expected 

 than was present posteriorly where the scapula and coracoid were 

 nearer together. This passage seems to me practically to admit 

 point which I have affirmed, that the scapula shows a third ca 

 ginous attachment in addition to the two surfaces giving attachm 

 to the coracoid and the humerus. Secondly, I urged that this 

 cartilage probably connected the scapula with the inner truncated 

 anterior border of the coracoid. No evidence is offered against this 

 conception. 



Then the only question of importance is by what name such a 

 cartilage might be known. Mr. Hulke regards it as a persistent 

 remnant of the continuum in which the bones originated. I prefer to 

 name it precoracoid, because if it were a primitive cartilage which did 

 not belong to either bone, it might be expected to be encroached upon 

 by scapula or coracoid, or both; but during the whole period of time 

 in which the genus Ichthyosaurus is found, there is no conclusive 

 evidence of any such extension of ossification upon the scapula or 

 coracoid. Neither scapula nor coracoid alter their forms at the 

 expense of the supposed cartilaginous continuum ; and, therefore, I 

 inter that the cartilage was not ossified, but persisted as a pre- 

 coracoid, though, as the coracoid foramen enlarged, the amount of 

 cartilage left to represent it might become small. If the foramen en- 

 larged so as to divide the cartilage into inner and outer portions, the 

 external part adjacent to the scapula and coracoid would still be pre- 

 coracoid, though the part adjacent to the inner anterior edge of the 

 coracoid might assume the aspect of an epicoracoid. Such a separate 

 condition of cartilages I understand Mr. Hulke to admit. 



In my discussion of the shoulder girdle (loc. cit.^ p. 120) it is 

 remarked that I have failed to find " a specimen which leads me to 

 doubt the substantial accuracy of the early interpretations of Home, 

 Buckland, and Cuvier, in regarding the scapula as extending an 

 articular surface inward and forward towards the pre-articular por- 

 tion of the coracoid." This passage is referred to by Mr. Hulke in 

 the following words : " In support of his conception of a precoracoid 

 cartilaginous in Ichthyosauria, Professor H. G. Seeley cites the 

 opinion held by Sir E. Home, Buckland, and Cuvier respecting the 

 position and relations of the scapula." The two statements are not 

 identical. Mr. Hulke reproduces the first of Sir E. Home's figures 

 (p. 237) of the shoulder girdle, which I have known as "the Buck- 

 land figure," to distinguish it from the " De la Beche figure," given 

 in the 'Phil. Trans.,' 1819, PI. 14. 



