428 DINOSAURIA CHAP. 



induced the unfortunate late Paul Albrecht to declare that 

 Iguanodon was a reptilian Duck ! The tarsal bones are separate. 

 The metatarsals and toes are reduced .to three, with 3, 4, 5 phalanges 

 respectively, the first being a mere styliform vestige. The 

 anterior limbs are likewise very powerful, but are much shorter ; 

 the hands are adapted for grasping, possibly for defence and 

 offence, as indicated by the pollex, which, although short, is 

 transformed into a formidable spur-like weapon, firmly fixed at 

 a right angle to the other four fingers, the phalanges of which 

 number 3, 3, 3, 4 ; the second and third fingers were protected 



FIG. 101. Skeleton of Iguanodon bernissartensis. x-g^. (After Marsh.) 



by hoof-like nails, the fifth finger is feeble, and stands somewhat 

 apart. The whole vertebral column consists of more than eighty 

 vertebrae, of which ten are cervical, eighteen thoracic and lumbar, 

 while five or six are fused into the sacrum. The cervical verte- 

 brae are opisthocoelous, and carry short ribs, except the atlas, 

 which possesses two separate supra-dorsal pieces, which fill the 

 gap between it and the occiput. 



Many specimens of /. bernissartensis, which is now completely 

 known, including even the hyoid bones, were discovered in 1878, 

 in the Belgian colliery of Bernissart, between Mons and Tournai, 

 close to the French frontier. The bones were in a fault or crack, 

 filled with clay of Wealden age, about one thousand feet below 

 the present sea -level, and there about thirty Iguanodons, all 



