240 Prof. H. G. Seelej on the Ornithosaurian Pelvis. 



judgment may be formed by anyone who takes the trouble to 

 examine the fossils to which I have referred ; and I invite 

 such study. 



Another interpretation of the Ornithosaurian pelvis has 

 been given by Mr. J. W. Hulke, F.R.S., in a memoir on the 

 fossil Crocodilia of the Oxford Clay *, who has also pro- 

 pounded the view that the prepubic bones have no existence. 

 But he does not agree with Zittel in identifying the prepubis 

 of my descriptions as the pubic bone, but supposes that 

 ossification to be a fractured portion of the pubis. The 

 author remarks : — " These parts are, I suggest, susceptible 

 of another reading ; the paddle- or fan-like bone as H. von 

 Meyer described it, with narrow short shaft and expanded 

 opposite end, is not, I submit, a bone complete in itself, but 

 merely the ventral symphysial portion of an os pubis con- 

 structed and associated with the other pelvic elements after 

 the common Lacertilian plan." No evidence is offered in 

 support of this generalization, nor is it elucidated with diagrams. 

 Speaking of the pubis in the genus Rhamphorhynchus the 

 author observes : — " The os pubis in this genus has the form 

 of a flattened bar bent angularly near its middle ; one limb 

 of it passes from the acetabulum downwards and forwards in an 

 approximately vertical plane, roughly parallel to that laid 

 through the median axial plane of the pelvis ; whilst the other 

 limb, passing transversely to this axis, meets the corresponding 

 limb of the os pubis of the other side, and unites with it in a 

 median symphysis." Again no evidence is offered in support. 

 A question of this nature can only be determined by evidence. 

 I have seen no specimen which lends the faintest support to 

 the idea that the bones which I have termed prepubic are 

 fractured portions of the pubic bones. If they were to be so 

 interpreted the usual conditions of fractured surface might be 

 expected. The only specimen quoted as sustaining the pro- 

 posed new interpretation is indicated by the footnote " Zittel, 

 RJiamph. Gemm. Pala3ontogr. Bd. xxix. iii. F. v. Taf. xii. 

 fig. 2." A cast of this specimen is contained in the museum of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons ; but I fail to find either in the 

 cast or the figure any demonstration of the nature of the rela- 

 tion of the pubic bone to the transverse bony bar in front of 

 the pelvis. The ventral extremity of the pubis appears to 

 be broken, but there is no evidence that the extremity of the 

 transverse bar is broken. Seeing how frequently the pelvic 

 sutures are obliterated, there would have been nothing remark- 

 able if these bones had been blended with the other pelvic 



♦ Troc. Zool. Soc. for 1888, p. 431. 



