MONSTROSITIES 301 



In this connection it is interesting to note that in the York 

 Museum there is a unique Plesiosaur. It is ticketed PL Zet- 

 landicus (Phillips) from the Lias of Lofthouse near Radnor. It 

 has a much shorter neck and a much 

 larger head than the ordinary Plesio- 

 saurs. It may be one of the transition 







forms between the Ichthyosaurs and 



the Plesiosaurs. Its large head is not 



. FIG. 94. (a) distal row of car- 



unhke that of an Ichthyosaur. It is the pal bones . ^ met acarpai bones 

 only example known of this species. of the right manus (dorsal aspect) 



of Water Tortoise ; Mammals, by 



Then let us compare for a moment Flower and Lydekker, p. 4 8. 

 the carpal and metacarpai bones of 



certain animals. In the Water Tortoise we find two regular 

 rows of carpal bones, of five bones in each row, each meta- 

 carpai bone articulating with only one of the carpal bones, as 

 shown in Fig. 94 ; while in the hand of the Plesiosaur (Fig. 93) 

 we find the carpal bones reduced, and huddled up in two irregular 

 rows, the metacarpai bones articulating quite differently from 

 those of the Water Tortoise, although the number of metacarpai 

 bones is the same in both animals. 



Such a difference in the disposition of the carpal bones, and in 

 their articulation with the metacarpai bones, in these two animals 

 may have occurred .-gradually, but there is no good reason why it 

 could not have occurred suddenly by a process which we would 

 now call monstrous, or, to use a scientific term, terato logical. 



There is one other great conclusion to be drawn from the study 

 of the records of sex-digitate men and women. In spite of their 

 marrying individuals in whose families no such abnormality 

 occurred, sex-digitation, as we have seen, persistently appeared 

 among their descendants, so that the notion which some 

 evolutionists, hold, viz., that a variation which may suddenly 



