226 Royal Society : — 



I subjoin a list of the Parrots now known to inhabit the 

 different islands of the group : — 



Cuba. Jamaica. St. Domingo. 



Ara tricolor ? Ara tricolor ? 



Conurus euops. Coimrus nanus. Conurus chloropterus. 



Chrysotis leucocephala. Chrysotis collaria. Chrysotis Sallsei. 



cyanorhyncha ? Chrysotis jamaicensis? 



agilis. 



Porto Rico. St. Thomas. St. Vincent. 



Conurus Maugaei. Conurus xantholsemus. 



Chrysotis vittata. Chrysotis Guihlingii. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 



March 24, 1859. — Sir Benjamin C. Brodie, Bart., President, in the 



Chair. 

 " On the Vertebral Characters of the Order Pterosauria (Ow.), as 

 exemplified in the genera Pterodactylus (Cuv.) and Dimorphodon 

 (Ow.)." By Prof. Owen, F.R.S. 



After mentioning various considerations which have tended to 

 invest the question of the vertebral characters of the Pterodactyles 

 with peculiar interest — above all, in reference to carrying out the 

 comparison of their skeleton with that of birds — the author alludes 

 to the scanty information on the subject already on record, which — • 

 with the exception of a remark of Professor Quensted as to the 

 apparently procoelian characters observed by him in a dorsal ver- 

 tebra of Pterodactylus Suevicus, and the apparent want of the 

 trochlear form in the cervical articulations of that animal — affords no 

 available data for comparing the vertebral mechanism of these rep- 

 tiles with that of other vertebrata adapted for flight ; he then 

 gives a summary of his own observations, made, as opportunities 

 presented themselves, for some years past. 



From investigations of species of Pterosauria extending from the 

 period of the Lias, as exemplified by the Dimorphodon macronyx, to 

 the upper greensand, as exemplified by the Pterodactylus Sedywickii 

 and Pter. Fittoni, the author has ascertained the fact that, with 

 respect to the cervical and dorso-lumbar vertebrae, the terminal ar- 

 ticular surfaces of the vertebral bodies are simply concave anteriorly 

 and convex posteriorly, and that they consequently manifest the 

 earliest known instance of the "procoelian" type which now pre- 

 vails in the reptilian class. But in no other reptile are those arti- 

 cular surfaces so narrow vertically, in proportion to their breadth, 

 as they are in the cervical vertebree of the Pterosauria : in the 

 dorsal series the cup and ball present more ordinary Saurian pro- 

 portions. 



