440 



Prof. H. G. Seeley on the 



Palasontographical Monograph. This seems to indicate 

 that two vertical sutures must have divided a mass like that 

 outlined on the restoration. I have no knowledge whether 



Fig. 1. 



Restoration of Pectoral Vertebrae, showing Supra-neural Ossification 

 with Ovate Articulation. 



this condition is paralleled by American specimens, for Prof. 

 Marsh (Am. Journ. Sci., April 1882) only mentions the 

 anchylosis of several vertebras in the pectoral region. A 

 similar condition is well known to characterize many birds, and 

 Professor Owen instances (' Anatomy of Vertebrates,' vol. ii. 

 p. 16) the Flamingo and the Sparrow-Hawk as having the 

 second to the fifth dorsal vertebras consolidated into one 

 piece. But no bird has the scapula articulating with the 

 neural arch. 



I have figured the scapula in Ornithocheirus and some 

 allied genera ('Ornithosauria,' pi. i. figs. 2-12, and 'Geological 

 Magazine,' Jan. 1881, pi. i. fig. 1). It is a short stout 

 bone which widens and thickens to what is usually the 

 free end, where it terminates in a broad, ovate, truncate, 

 flattened surface, which is smooth, vertically flat, and a little 

 convex in length. This extremity, which has every character 

 of an articular surface, exactly corresponds in form and size 

 with the impressions on the sides of the bone which I regard 

 as part of the neural arches of pectoral vertebras. The con- 

 clusion therefore seems to follow that the scapulas extended 

 transversely outward, curving a little downward from the 

 neural spine which divided their extremities from each other. 

 Though this condition is dissimilar to anything seen among 

 birds, the scapulas approximate dorsally in some mammals, as 

 do the supra-scapulas among lizards and amphibians. Since 

 the scapula and coracoid are anchylosed together in most 

 species of Ornithocheiroidea, an arch is thus made between the 

 vertebra and the sternum, which is almost as firm as the arch 



