﻿124 Revieivs — Prof. H. G. Seeley on Ornithosauria. 



Museum, Fellows' buildings of King's College; Lower Chalk, in- 

 terior of several churches ; it is called Clunch. 



This work, along with Mr. Whitaker's list of geological papers on 

 Cambridgeshire, will not only be very useful to students at Cam- 

 bridge reading for the University examinations, but will also be 

 very interesting to old members of the University, and we can 

 strongly recommend it to readers of this Magazine who wish to 

 obtain a clear and correct view of what is at present known of the 

 Geology of Cambridgeshire, as a carefully prepared and well- written 

 book. J. F. W. 



II. — On the Organization of the Ornithosauria. Linnean 

 Society's Journal— Zoology. Vol. XIII. 1876, pp. 84-107. 

 By Professor H. G. Seeley, F.L.S., F.Z.S., F.G.S. 



THIS is an important paper upon an interesting paliBontological 

 subject, for but in few instances have the hard lines of classifi- 

 CHtion been more difficult to define, or have led to greater divergence 

 of opinion among the most eminent of European naturalists, past 

 and present, than has that of the natural position of the Pterodactyles 

 in regard to their affinities : whether they should be classed with the 

 Birds on the one hand, or with the Beptiles on the other. It is true 

 that the weight of authority, whilst admitting some important 

 anomalies in their organization, refer them to the latter class. Prof. 

 Owen's name of Pterosauria being generally accepted for the group. 

 But other naturalists consider that their peculiar organization, as de- 

 duced from their osteological remains, entitle them to be elevated 

 into a distinct group or Order, intermediate between birds and reptiles, 

 and for which group the designation Ornithosauria was proposed by 

 Prince Charles Buonaparte in 1838. Among the advocates of these 

 views is the author of the memoir under consideration, and in which 

 he maintains, aided by further observations and additional facts, the 

 opinions enunciated some seven years ago in his useful and intei'est- 

 ing wox'k on the Ornithosauria in the Woodwardian Museum, Cam- 

 bridge (see notice in Geol. Mag. Vol. VII. p. 341). 



From careful comparisons of the various bones of the skeleton of 

 these extinct volants with the corresponding bones in birds and 

 reptiles, he here describes in detail the points in which they most 

 resemble, or depart from, the typical characteristics of the groups 

 with which they have been compared; and maintains that the results 

 of his later examinations confirm his previous convictions, and fully 

 demonstrate that the organization of these old volants was decidedly 

 more avian than reptilian. 



The most important characters upon which he relies for the claims 

 of the Pterodactylia to be classified as a distinct Order, are the pneu- 

 matic foramina and the form of the brain-cavity, believing that 

 " brains and lungs are organs of incomparably greater value in 

 questions of organization " than manus or pes, — organs, in which, 

 a<--cording to Prof Huxley, the Pterodactyles depart most widely from 

 the ornithic type. 



With regard to the pneumatic foramina, he asserts that they are 



