REVIEWS 
“The Skeleton of Ornithodesmus latidens.’ By R. W. HooLey. 
In the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, LXIX 
(i913); 272-422 pls) DOXOVIRXE: 
The present paper is of much interest and of importance in any 
discussion as to the relationships and structure of the pterodactyls. . By 
diligent collecting Mr. Hooley has brought together a very considerable 
portion of the skeleton of a remarkable form hitherto known only 
doubtfully from fragments. Ornithodesmus is a pterodactyl of con- 
siderable size, more primitive in some respects than the American forms, 
but with certain peculiarities all its own. Its narial and antorbital 
vacuities are of enormous size; it has teeth in the front part of the jaws; 
a large keel on the sternum; a notarium and vertebral articulation of the 
scapula; doubtless a short tail; and no pubic opening." . 
The femur Mr. Hooley describes as different from that of Pteranodon 
or Nyctosaurus in the divergence of the neck, but really there is no 
essential difference, the articular surface in all being at the extreme top, 
and its significance has already been discussed by the writer. Mr. 
Hooley believes that the wing metacarpal was shorter than the forearm; 
but that remains to be proved. 
The pterodactyls offer a fertile field for speculation, and the author 
has availed himself of the opportunity presented by Ornithodesmus to 
propose a number of hypotheses as to the structure and habits of these 
strange reptiles, some of which are ingenuous, but the most of which 
seem doubtful to the present writer. He proposes an entirely new. 
hypothesis as to the structure of the sternum, but one which is quite 
impossible of demonstration, if it be true, until the terrestrial ancestors of — 
the pterosaurs have been discovered in Triassic rocks. He believes that 
the so-called manubrium, and the keel, whether large, as in Ornitho- 
desmus, or small, as in Pteranodon, are really composed of the inter- 
«While at Munich recently Dr. Stromer and the writer convinced themselves 
thoroughly of the presence of a true obturator foramen below the acetabulum, occupy- 
ing its usual position in the early reptiles. Probably thorough search will reveal its 
presence in some form in all pterodactyls, definitely proving the fusion of pubis and 
ischium. 
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