AMPHIBIANS. 73 



Example 7. Sufo cinereus, Laurenti. 



Professor Hyrtl's preparation of this Austrian Toad shows precisely the same cha- 

 racters as those of Bufo vulgaris, which, in its adult state, only differs from half-grown 

 individuals by a fuller degree of ossification, and a somewhat more elegant shape of the 

 various parts. 



B. With a rudimentary " Omosfernum." 

 Example 1. Pipa dorsigera, Daudin. 



Plate VI, fig. 1, shows the Shoulder-girdle and Sternum of a female Surinam Toad, of the 

 natural size ; it is an upper view, with the left supra-scapula removed. In many respects these 

 structures are unique, in others we have a near approach to Dactyletlira ; whilst as to the 

 "omosternum," it agrees with the next instance a very different type. 



The supra-scapula (s. sc.) is very large, and irregularly fan-shaped, and can be bent at less 

 than a right angle upon the scapula : it has but little outer bone, and this is deeply cleft ; but 

 the endosteal bone extends largely along the cartilage, only the margin of which is soft for a 

 line or two in breadth. 



The anterior fork of the sheathing bone is very narrow, and clamps the anterior concave 

 edge of the supra-scapula ; the posterior part of the plate is widely divergent from the other ; 

 and, although broad below, becomes pointed and hooked above. The intercellular bone is, as in 

 all the other plates, very compact ; it reaches the posterior sinuous margin of the plate but not 

 the upper. 1 



As in Dactylethra, the scapula (sc.) is extremely small; it is irregularly five-sided, having a 

 straight upper margin and a wedge-like base to fit in between the prse-coracoid and the coracoid ; 

 it is rather thick, and is undivided. The great inferiority of the scapula to the supra-scapula in 

 Dactyletlira and Pipa is an excess of what is typical in the Anoura; they may both be called 

 " ultra-types." Below the glenoid cavity each moiety of the Shoulder-girdle is developed into an 

 extraordinarily large plate, quite as large as, but very different from, what is seen in the 

 Urodela. 



Each Shoulder-girdle moiety is about twice as large below the glenoid cavity as above it ; 

 and the small scapula forms a narrow waist to this two-bladed plate. Underpropping the well 

 ossified scapula are two other shaft-bones, and between these a large cleft appears, which becomes 

 a " fenestra," ten lines long and six broad, and having its long axis passing downwards towards 



1 Amongst the few specimens of Amphibian skeletons in the Museum of the College of Surgeons 

 that existed prior to the purchase of Professor Hyrtl's splendid series, there has been for many years, 

 that is, since the purchase of Hunter's Collection, the skeleton of a Pipa, which has suffered equally 

 from injuries and from repairs more " discredited/' indeed, by the latter than by the former. In the 

 Catalogue (vol. i, p. 121, No. 601) it is thus written : " The supra-scapula is bifurcate, its anterior and 

 longer branch resting upon the diapophysis of the atlas." Thus the little haft is described as though 

 it were a perfect thing, but the huge blade is forgotten. 

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